Origins of the word 'gay'

Origins of the Word 'gay' The word “gay” seems to have its origins around the 12th century in England, derived from the Old French word ‘gai’. The word’s original meaning meant something to the effect of “joyful”, “carefree”, “full of mirth”, or “bright and showy” - So how did the word gay become what we today define as 'homosexual? However, before we get into that; the term 'gay' has quite the colorful history, with its definition changing rather frequently throughout its history. Around the early parts of the 17th century, the word began to be associated with immorality. Fast-forward to the 19th century and the word gay referred to a woman who was a prostitute and a gay man was someone who slept with a lot of women (ironically enough), often prostitutes. Around the 1920s and 1930s, however, the word started to have a new meaning. In terms of the sexual meaning of the word, a “gay man” no longer just meant a man who had sex with a lot of women, but now started to refer to men who had sex with other men. By 1955, the word gay now officially acquired the new added definition of meaning homosexual males. Gay men themselves seem to have been behind the driving thrust for this new definition as they felt (and many still do), that “homosexual” is much too clinical, sounding like a disorder. As such, it was common amongst the gay community to refer to one another as “gay” decades before this was a commonly known definition. Interestingly enough, homosexual men were calling one another gay as early as the 1920s. Since then, gay, meaning homosexual male, has steadily driven out all the other definitions that have floated about through time and of course also has gradually begun supplementing the word ‘lesbian’ as referring to women who are homosexual.