# homosexual

Pronunciation: say "ho-moh-SEK-shoo-uhl" /ˌhɒməʊˈsɛksjuːəl/

## Adjective

1. Sexually or romantically attracted to people of one's own sex; also, of an act, relationship, or subject, involving or relating to same-sex attraction or relations.
   - Simple: Attracted to people of the same sex, or about or involving love and sex between people of the same sex.
   - _The survey asked respondents whether they considered themselves homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual._
   - _The committee agreed that it made no difference whether the candidate was homosexual._

## Noun

2. Someone whose sexual attraction is exclusively or predominantly to people of their own sex.
   - Simple: A person who is sexually attracted only or mostly to people of the same sex.
   - _For decades, homosexuals could not serve openly in the armed forces._
   - _The novel's hero is a homosexual living quietly in 1950s Chicago._

## Adjective

3. Of a place such as a bar or nightclub, intended for or used by homosexual people. *(dated)*
   - Simple: Of a bar, club or other place, meant for or used by gay people.
   - _Police raids on homosexual bars were common in the city during the 1950s._
   - _In the 1950s, police often raided the city's few homosexual bars._

## Origin

Karl Maria Kertbeny coined the German word homosexual in 1868 from homo- ("same") and sexual ("relating to sex or sexuality"), and English borrowed it. It spread through the second edition (1887) of Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis and through Charles Gilbert Chaddock's English translation of that book in 1893, and it pushed aside Uranian, a slightly older term.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/homosexual (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).