Queer Meaning
/kwɪə/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjHomosexual.
adjNon-heterosexual or non-cisgender: homosexual, bisexual, asexual, transgender, etc.
Sentence Examples
What a queer story!
He is really a queer fellow!
He had a queer expression on his face.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The old mansion had a ____ smell coming from the basement, unlike anything normal.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The academic used the term ____ to describe identities that fall outside conventional categories.
Word Origin & History
Attested since about 1510, at first in Scots. Usually taken to be from Middle Low German (Brunswick dialect) queer (“oblique, off-center”) 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.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"“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.”"
— 1979, Michael Nickolay, chapter 9, in Brother & Sister: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: J. B. Lippincott Company, →ISBN, page 100:
"This is a one-shot thing we got goin’ on here. […] You know I ain’t queer."
— 2005, Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana, directed by Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain, spoken by Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger):
"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?"
— 1999, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, Routledge, published 2002, preface to 1999 edition:
"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"."
— 2022, Marisol Cortez, “Ambivalent Anality: Revisiting the Queer Ecology of the "Jackass Moment"”, in Media+Environment:
"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."
— 2025 March 30, Scottie Andrew, “Queer and trans homesteaders are conquering the social media frontier”, in CNN:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The old mansion had a ____ smell coming from the basement, unlike anything normal.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The academic used the term ____ to describe identities that fall outside conventional categories.