Adjacent Words

Queer definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

QUEER, a.
Odd; singular; hence, whimsical.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: beyond or deviating from the usual or expected; "a curious hybrid accent"; "her speech has a funny twang"; "they have some funny ideas about war"; "had an odd name"; "the peculiar aromatic odor of cloves"; "something definitely queer about this town"; "what a rum fellow"; "singular behavior" [syn: curious, funny, odd, peculiar, queer, rum, rummy, singular]
2: homosexual or arousing homosexual desires [syn: gay, queer, homophile] n
1: offensive term for an openly homosexual man [syn: fagot, faggot, fag, fairy, nance, pansy, queen, queer, poof, poove, pouf] v
1: hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of; "What ultimately frustrated every challenger was Ruth's amazing September surge"; "foil your opponent" [syn: thwart, queer, spoil, scotch, foil, cross, frustrate, baffle, bilk]
2: put in a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position [syn: queer, expose, scupper, endanger, peril]

Merriam Webster's

I. adjective Etymology: origin unknown Date: 1508 1. a. worthless, counterfeit <queer money> b. questionable, suspicious 2. a. differing in some odd way from what is usual or normal b. (1) eccentric, unconventional (2) mildly insane ; touched c. absorbed or interested to an extreme or unreasonable degree ; obsessed d. (1) often disparaging homosexual (2) sometimes offensive gay 4b 3. not quite well • queerish adjective • queerly adverb • queerness noun Usage: Over the past two decades, an important change has occurred in the use of queer in sense 2d. The older, strongly pejorative use has certainly not vanished, but a use by some gay people and some academics as a neutral or even positive term has established itself. This development is most noticeable in the adjective but is reflected in the corresponding noun as well. The newer use is sometimes taken to be offensive, especially by older gay men who fostered the acceptance of gay in these uses and still have a strong preference for it. II. transitive verb Date: circa 1812 1. to spoil the effect or success of <queer one's plans> 2. to put or get into an embarrassing or disadvantageous situation III. noun Date: circa 1812 one that is queer; especially often disparaging homosexual Usage: see queer I

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj., n., & v. --adj. 1 strange; odd; eccentric. 2 shady; suspect; of questionable character. 3 a slightly ill; giddy; faint. b Brit. sl. drunk. 4 derog. sl. (esp. of a man) homosexual. --n. derog. sl. a homosexual. --v.tr. sl. spoil; put out of order. Phrases and idioms: in Queer Street sl. in a difficulty, in debt or trouble or disrepute. queer a person's pitch spoil a person's chances, esp. secretly or maliciously. Derivatives: queerish adj. queerly adv. queerness n. Etymology: perh. f. G quer oblique (as THWART)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Queer Queer, v. t. [From Queer, a.] 1. To puzzle. [Prov. Eng. or Slang] 2. To ridicule; to banter; to rally. [Slang] 3. To spoil the effect or success of, as by ridicule; to throw a wet blanket on; to spoil. [Slang]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Queer Queer, a. [Compar. Queerer; superl. Queerest.] [G. quer cross, oblique, athwart (cf. querkopf a queer fellow), OHG. twer, twerh, dwerah; akin to D. dvars, AS, [thorn]weorh thwart, bent, twisted, Icel. [thorn]verr thwart, transverse, Goth. [thorn]wa[`i]rhs angry, and perh. to L. torqyere to twist, and E. through. Cf. Torture, Through, Thwart, a.] 1. At variance with what is usual or normal; differing in some odd way from what is ordinary; odd; singular; strange; whimsical; as, a queer story or act. `` A queer look.'' --W. Irving. 2. Mysterious; suspicious; questionable; as, a queer transaction. [Colloq.]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Queer Queer, n. Counterfeit money. [Slang] To shove the queer, to put counterfeit money in circulation. [Slang]

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(queerer, queerest, queers) 1. Something that is queer is strange. (OLD-FASHIONED) If you ask me, there's something a bit queer going on. ADJ 2. People sometimes call homosexual men queers. (INFORMAL, OFFENSIVE) N-COUNT • Queer is also an adjective. ...queer men. ADJ: usu v-link ADJ 3. Queer means relating to homosexual people, and is used by some homosexuals. ...contemporary queer culture. = gay ADJ: ADJ n

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Odd, strange, singular, droll, whimsical, quaint, curious, fantastic, unusual, uncommon, extraordinary, unique.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

To puzzle or confound. I have queered the old full bottom; i.e. I have puzzled the judge. To queer one's ogles among bruisers; to darken one's day lights.

Moby Thesaurus

AC-DC, abnormal, absurd, affected, amphierotic, anomalous, apocryphal, artificial, assumed, atypical, auntie, autoerotic, bad check, bad money, ball up, base coin, bastard, batty, bereft of reason, bi-guy, bisexed, bisexual, bizarre, bogus, bogus money, bollix, bollix up, botch, brainsick, brummagem, bugger, bugger up, bull dyke, bungle, butch, catamite, chicken, colorable, colored, cook, counterfeit, counterfeit money, counterfeited, crab, crackbrained, cracked, cramp, crank, crankish, cranky, crazed, crazy, crimp, cripple, crotchety, curious, daft, de-energize, debilitate, deluded, demented, deprived of reason, deranged, destroy, deviant, deviative, different, disable, disenable, disoriented, distorted, distraught, divergent, dizzy, dotty, doubtful, drain, dressed up, droll, dubious, dummy, dyke, eccentric, effeminate, embellished, embroidered, enfeeble, erratic, ersatz, exceptional, exotic, extraordinary, factitious, fag, faggot, faint, fairy, fake, faked, false money, falsified, feigned, femme, fey, fictitious, fictive, fishy, flaky, flighty, flit, forgery, foul up, freaked out, freakish, freaky, fricatrice, fruit, funny, garbled, gay, giddy, green goods, gum, gum up, gunsel, hallucinated, hamstring, hash up, hipped, homo, homoerotic, homophile, homosexual, homosexualist, hors de combat, idiocratic, idiosyncratic, illegitimate, imitation, inactivate, incapacitate, incongruous, insane, invert, inverted, irrational, irregular, junky, kibosh, kinky, kite, kooky, lame, laughable, lesbian, light-headed, loco, loony, louse up, ludicrous, lunatic, mad, maddened, maggoty, maim, make-believe, man-made, manic, mannish, mar, mazed, mental, mentally deficient, meshuggah, mess up, mock, moon-struck, muck up, muddle, muff, mysterious, nance, non compos, non compos mentis, not all there, not right, nuts, nutty, odd, oddball, of unsound mind, off, off the wall, offbeat, out, outlandish, outre, pansy, passing strange, pathic, peculiar, perverted, phony, pinchbeck, play hell with, play hob with, poorly, potty, pretended, pseudo, psycho, punk, put, put-on, puzzling, quaint, qualmish, qualmy, quasi, queasy, queen, queer the works, questionable, quirky, reasonless, remarkable, ridiculous, rubber check, ruin, sabotage, sapphic, sapphist, screw up, screwball, screwy, self-styled, senseless, shady, sham, shoddy, sick, simulated, singular, sink, snafu, snarl up, so-called, soi-disant, spike, spoil, spurious, stark-mad, stark-staring mad, strange, supposititious, suspect, suspicious, synthetic, tetched, tin, tinsel, titivated, touched, transvestite, tribade, tribadistic, twisted, unauthentic, unbalanced, uncanny, uncommon, unconventional, unearthly, uneasy, unexampled, unfit, ungenuine, unhinged, unnatural, unorthodox, unparalleled, unreal, unsane, unsettled, unsound, unusual, unwell, vertiginous, wacky, wandering, warped, weaken, weird, whimsical, wing, witless, wondrous strange, wreck