gayer

Pluralgayers

1. 1
   adjective

   Comparative form of gay. In older use, brighter or merrier.

   The festival atmosphere grew gayer as the evening wore on.

   These new curtains are far gayer than the dull ones we replaced.

   Note

   The regular -er comparative, built the way most one-syllable adjectives are. It sits most comfortably on the older, gradable sense of gay (bright, lively, cheerful), because an identity is not usually something a person has more or less of. Careful modern writing avoids grading the identity senses. The same spelling also serves as a derogatory British noun, so the surrounding words decide which one is meant.

2. 2
   nounderogatorycolloquialUKcountable

   A derogatory British colloquial term for a gay person, or for someone regarded as uncool or contemptible.

   One of the regulars sneered that the new bloke was a right gayer.

   The lads mocked him as a gayer the moment he turned down the pint.

   Note

   An insult made by adding -er to gay, aimed at someone mocked as homosexual or simply as uncool. Its home is casual British abuse: football and music Usenet groups in 2002 and 2008 throw it around freely, and it is best left there. A separate coinage, ex-gayers, appears in Dann Hazel's Witness (1999) for people pressed by their churches to leave gay identity behind.

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