queer
/kwɪɹ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.76 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Non-heterosexual or non-cisgender: homosexual, bisexual, asexual, transgender, etc.
Colloquial; Derogatory
adj
Pertaining to sexual or gender behaviour or identity which does not conform to conventional heterosexual or cisgender norms, assumptions etc.
Example Sentences
- "“Such a Momma’s boy.” The old men had started up again—or perhaps they had never stopped. “No matter who he schtupped. Even Marilyn. I wouldn’t be surprised he was queer.” / “Strange, yes. Weird, yes. Queer, I don’t think.”"
- "This is a one-shot thing we got goin’ on here. […] You know I ain’t queer."
- "the queer community"
- "If gender is no longer to be understood as consolidated through normative sexuality, then is there a crisis of gender that is specific to queer contexts?"
- "Historically, this has meant that queer sexuality—defined here not literally or only as same-gender desire but as "the sex of others," meaning any sexuality outside the bounds of the reproductive, white, and genitally oriented—is often positioned against and even as toxic to "nature"."
- "And yet queer and transgender people are finding a place in a lifestyle that, at least online, often occupies the same digital space as content from conservative creators, said Devin Proctor, an assistant professor of anthropology at Elon University in North Carolina who studies how we construct identities online."
Etymology
Attested since about 1510, at first in Scots. Usually taken to be from Middle Low German (Brunswick dialect) queer (“oblique, off-centre”) or the related German quer (“diagonal”), from Old Saxon thwerh, from Proto-West Germanic *þwerh, from Proto-Germanic *þwerhaz, from Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to turn, twist, wind”); compare Latin torqueō, and see more at thwart. The OED argues against this due to the semantic differences and the date at which the word appears in Scots. Began to be used to describe gay people in the late 1800s; see usage notes for more.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *terkʷ-, -, thwerh, *þwerh, *þwerhaz
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /kwɪɹ/
- British English: /kwɪə/
Usage
- Colloquial
- Derogatory
- Dated
- Humorous
- British usage
- Informal
- Slang
- Archaic
Inflected Forms
queerer (comparative)
queerest (superlative)
qwer (alternative)
queers (plural)
queers (present, singular)
queering (participle, present)
queered (participle, past)
queered (past)
more queer (comparative)
most queer (superlative)