Sing If You’re Glad to Be Gay​: The Evolution of “Gay”

in the History of the English Language

As with every word in present-day English (PDE), the meaning and connotation of ​gay​ in

modern times has undergone a tremendous amount of change. Over the last several centuries, it

has experienced a short of cyclical shift between amelioration and pejoration. Given its complex

history, an analysis of these shifts is necessary to understand its modern use to describe an

individual who is attracted to the same gender. Even in its modern day use, ​gay​ is taking on

entirely new meanings, and there are newer debates surrounding the validity of its use to describe

certain communities, such as bisexual, pansexual, and asexual people. For the purpose of this

paper, I will be analyzing ​gay​ as an adjective, as that is its most common use not only in PDE,

but throughout the history of the English language.

I began my search using the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which I felt might

provide the most insight on the initial uses of the word ​gay​. Its pronunciation has been more or

less consistent since its earliest recordings in Middle English (ME), when it was pronounced as

/gaj/. However, ME spellings of ​gay​ varied greatly throughout the 19th century, ranging between

“gaȝe,” “gai,” “gaie,” and “gaye.” Its origins are, according to the OED, from the French “gai,”

meaning “cheerful, merry, pretty.” This all but confirms that ​gay​ was not a term that was

introduced into the English language as a borrowed word from French.

I was surprised to find that its earliest recorded use was in the early 1200’s, and that its

original meaning was “bright or lively-looking.” Unlike my prior assumptions, ​gay​ was used in

reference to something beautiful and lively, and was nearly always used as a compliment.

Furthermore, it continued to carry a positive meaning well into the mid-1500’s, and its

denotation had expanded to include the now-obsolete “finely or showily dressed” and “noble,
beautiful, or fine.” One persistent definition that lasted through the mid-20th century was

“carefree and exuberantly joyful,” which was its most common use before its shift to describe

someone who is attracted to the same gender.

Although its primary use was positive, by 1597, it had soon undergone pejoration and

broadening with the addition of a newer, less flattering meaning. Its secondary use began to refer

to someone who was “hedonistic” and “dedicated to social pleasures.” In Nicholas Rowe’s ​The

Fair Penitent: A Tragedy,​ a character says, “​Is this that Haughty, Gallant, Gay Lothario?” The

pejorative use of ​gay​ in this context gives insight into the shifting meaning of the word, which

likely took on a haughty, high-class, pretentious connotation by the late 1500’s.

A word once used to describe someone noble or beautiful was now used to describe

someone “uninhibited” and “promiscuous,” motivated only by “wild” desires that only served

their immediate needs. Looking at the Green’s Dictionary of Slang, the pejorative use of ​gay

began as early as 1386 (as its earliest recorded negative slang), although it would not be widely

used as an insult until the 1600’s. By then, ​gay​ had expanded in meaning to describe “a woman

leading an immoral life, working as a prostitute.” In 1512, the slang term “going gay” referred to

a person who had committed adultery.

In the 1900’s, ​gay​ also carried a condescending tone in the United States, and was

sometimes used to describe someone “over-familiar” and “cheeky”; someone who might be too

confident or socially unaware for their own good. In Leonard H. Nason’s 1927 novel ​Three

Lights from a Match​, on page 257, a character says, “He’s too gay with them knuckles o’ his.” In

this context, ​gay​ can be understood to allude to the unnamed character’s overconfidence with his

fighting, or a tendency to quickly, and without warning, resort to violence. It was not until the
1920’s that its definition had expanded to also include homosexual people, but more specifically

homosexual men, and it had transformed into a label of identity rather than an insult or

compliment. However, observed patterns in speech and conversation were not at all similar to the

use of ​gay​ in less casual contexts.

According to the TIME Magazine Corpus (TMC), ​gay​ was used strictly to mean people

who were glad or overjoyed, and, in some cases, a brightly-colored article of clothing. In some

cases, it referred to someone who was accomplished. “Of all the gay bachelors,” writes the

author of the 1924 article, “W.E. Garrett Gilmore was the gayest.” The article goes on to discuss

his various sports achievements - not his homosexual relationships. This might indicate that

gayness as it related to homsexuality was spoken about more openly than it was written about, at

least in the early 20th century. In the 1950’s, ​gay​ is commonly found with collocates like

“dancing” and “technicolor,” which means that it was still primarily being used to describe

things that were brightly colored.

There is a gradual turn to using ​gay​ in reference to homosexuality by the 1970’s in the

TMC, particularly in regards to “gay leather bars” and gay communities in major cities like

Chicago, IL. Its collocates included “rights” (21 results), “liberation” (15 results), and “activists”

(13 results). From these results, one can conclude that ​gay​ slowly became a political term,

associated mainly with same-sex rights and liberation. By that time in the United States, gay

liberation movements had begun to pick up speed as more of the LGBT population began to feel

comfortable being out of the proverbial closet.

In the TV Corpus, it shows that ​gay​ was not in popular media use 1980’s, and reached its

peak in the 2000’s. Television characters did not start using it in reference to homosexuality until
this point at all - any use of it was in reference to someone being happy or joyous. This is likely

because, by 1922, “gay” started to refer to homosexual men, and there was a purposeful lack of

acknowledgement of same-sex relationships. In the Movie Corpus, the highest frequency of ​gay

in movies seems to be in the 1800’s.

In the Corpus of Historical American English (CHAE), ​gay​ was in very little use until the

1820’s, and even then, examples of how it was used do not begin to refer to homosexuality and

same-sex relationships until the 1920’s, when it has the highest frequency (1,127) until 2000

(1,066). In the Corpus of Contemporary American English (CCAE), it is used in a variety of

contexts, from law, to politics, to entertainment, to academics. However, not all of its uses carry

positive meanings. One of the notable uses in recent years has been in Alex Jones’s podcast,

where he claims that the government is adding chemicals to water that are “turning [...] frogs

gay.” Bill O’Reilly is also quoted as saying, “And the gay people. I don’t think [they] understand

that marriage is a privilege, not a right.

Furthermore, in the CCAE, ​gay​ is most frequently collocated with: lesbian (3252), men

(2422), marriage (2222), rights (1969), and community (882). These associations are significant

because they further solidify the word as being an identity and a description related to one’s

personhood rather than a personality or visual trait. There has definitely been a political slant to

it in contemporary times, as recognition as a coherent class of people also comes with the need

for expanded rights. Also collocated are the words movement (292), pride (258), and advocates

(119), further building upon ​gay​ simultaneously undergoing amelioration and politicizing.

Looking at the iWeb Corpus, it is obvious that contemporary attitudes towards

homosexuality have changed, as well as the meaning of ​gay​ becoming more singular and focused
on ​gay​ as a sexual identity. Being gay is also more socially acceptable in the 21st century than it

has been in the past several centuries, and openness about being gay and the LGBT community

has increased as a result. However, not all change in the meaning of ​gay​ has been positive.

According to Green’s Dictionary of Slang, in contemporary times, it has begun to retake a

negative meaning, as it is now becoming synonymous with “stupid” and “trivial,” as well as a

man “lacking in masculinity” but not himself being homosexual. This is an example of the

cyclical nature of ​gay​.

In conclusion, the word ​gay h​ as undergone equal parts amelioration ​and​ pejoration, as

well as a linguistic broadening ​and​ narrowing. The history of ​gay​ in a linguistic sense is as

complicated as its social and political history. Through my research, I was able to mark the

various shifts in its denotation between time periods, and do additional analysis on the social

reasons for why these shifts were the case.

Word Count: 1,437

 Works Cited

"gay, adj., adv., and n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, March 2019,
www.oed.com/view/Entry/77207. Accessed 2 May 2019.

Davies, Mark. (2008-) The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): 560 million
words, 1990-present. Available online at https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/.

Davies, Mark. (2018-) The 14 Billion Word iWeb Corpus. Available online at
https://corpus.byu.edu/iWeb/.

Davies, Mark. (2010-) The Corpus of Historical American English (COHA): 400 million words,
1810-2009. Available online at https://corpus.byu.edu/coha/.

Davies, Mark. (2007-) TIME Magazine Corpus: 100 million words, 1920s-2000s. Available
online at https://corpus.byu.edu/time/.

Davies, Mark. (2019-) The TV Corpus: 325 million words, 1950-2018. Available online at
https://corpus.byu.edu/tv/.

Davies, Mark. (2019-) The Movie Corpus: 200 million words, 1930-2018. Available online at
https://corpus.byu.edu/movies/.