English
queer
Queer comes from Old Saxon thwerh ‘bent, crooked’, and goes back to Proto-Germanic *þwerhaz ‘cross, adverse’.
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*þwerhaz‘cross, adverse’reconstructed
- Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*þwerh‘transverse, crooked’reconstructed
- Old Saxonc. 800–1200thwerh‘bent, crooked’
- Englishearliest quotation 1824queer
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*þwerhaz‘cross, adverse’reconstructed
- Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*þwerh‘transverse, crooked’reconstructed
- Old Saxonc. 800–1200thwerh‘bent, crooked’
- Englishearliest quotation 1824queer
Earliest quotation: 1824, Geoffrey Crayon pseudonym; Washington Ir, Tales of a Traveller: “An old long-faced, long-bodied servant, gave a queer look”.
The story
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. Began to be used to describe gay people in the late 1800s; see usage notes for more.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- ‘to turn, twist, wind’
torture, torch, tart, torment, extortion, torque, tort, thwart, torsion, trowel, 25 more
Today it means
adj Homosexual.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *þwerhaz / queer