queer
A person who is or appears homosexual, or who has homosexual qualitiesA person who is or appears homosexual, or who has homosexual qualities.
» There's nowt as queer as folk.
So etwas kommt vor. — Pfirsichbaeumchen
Tatoeba contributors · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
4 senses(colloquial, derogatory, sometimes)A person who is or appears homosexual, or who has homosexual qualities.
(colloquial, derogatory, sometimes)A person of any non-heterosexual sexuality or sexual identity.
Queers
квірkvir
(colloquial, derogatory, sometimes)A person of any genderqueer identity.
(archaic, informal, with definite article)Counterfeit money.
- offensive term for a homosexual man
Examples
55 sentencesThere's nowt as queer as folk.
deSo etwas kommt vor. — Pfirsichbaeumchen
Are you as queer as I am?
He had a queer expression on his face.
ruУ него было нелепое выражение лица. — akrav
She was getting used to queer things happening.
deSie gewöhnte sich allmählich daran, dass seltsame Dinge passierten. — Tamy
A queer person is not a conversation piece.
Translations
3 languagesBy meaning 1
By meaning 1
Origin
Attested since about 1510, at first in Scots. Usually taken to be from Middle Low German (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.
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