| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| queer |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  kwîr |
| ADJECTIVE: | Inflected forms: queer·er, queer·est
1. Deviating from the expected or normal; strange: a queer situation. 2. Odd or unconventional, as in behavior; eccentric. See synonyms at strange. 3. Of a questionable nature or character; suspicious. 4. Slang Fake; counterfeit. 5. Feeling slightly ill; queasy. 6. Offensive Slang Homosexual. 7. Usage Problem Of or relating to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, or transgendered people. | | NOUN: | 1. Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a homosexual person. 2. Usage Problem A lesbian, gay male, bisexual, or transgendered person. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: queered, queer·ing, queers
Slang 1. To ruin or thwart: “might try to queer the Games with anything from troop movements . . . to a bomb attack” (Newsweek). 2. To put (someone) in a bad position. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Perhaps from Low German, oblique, off-center, from Middle Low German dwer. See terkw- in Appendix I. | | OTHER FORMS: | queer ish —ADJECTIVE
queerly —ADVERB
queerness —NOUN
| | USAGE NOTE: | A reclaimed word is a word that was formerly used solely as a slur but that has been semantically overturned by members of the maligned group, who use it as a term of defiant pride. Queer is an example of a word undergoing this process. For decades queer was used solely as a derogatory adjective for gays and lesbians, but in the 1980s the term began to be used by gay and lesbian activists as a term of self-identification. Eventually, it came to be used as an umbrella term that included gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people. Nevertheless, a sizable percentage of people to whom this term might apply still hold queer to be a hateful insult, and its use by heterosexuals is often considered offensive. Similarly, other reclaimed words are usually offensive to the in-group when used by outsiders, so extreme caution must be taken concerning their use when one is not a member of the group.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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