Definition of "queer"

An old long-faced, long-bodied servant, gave a queer look

1824, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], Tales of a Traveller, (please specify |part=1 to 4), Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea, […]

“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.”

1865, Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

One thing has struck me as a bit queer. During my two terms of office the whole Democratic press, and the morbidly honest and 'reformatory' portion of the Republican press, thought it horrible to keep U.S. troops stationed in the Southern States, and when they were called upon to protect the lives of negroes–as much citizens under the Constitution as if their skins were white–the country was scarcely large enough to hold the sound of indignation belched forth by them for some years. Now, however, there is no hesitation about exhausting the whole power of the government to suppress a strike on the slightest intimation that danger threatens.

1877, Ulysses S. Grant, The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant: November 1, 1876-September 30, 1878‎, page 252

It looked queer to me to see boxes labeled "His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America." The packages so labeled contained Bass ale or Cognac brandy, which cost "His Excellency" less than we Yankees had to pay for it. Think of the President drinking imported liquors while his soldiers were living on pop-corn and water!

1885, David Dixon Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War‎, page 274

Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

“’Tis a queer book - here, leave me git on my spectacles - ” The old man fumbled among his rags, producing a pair of dirty and amazingly antique glasses (...)

1920, H. P. Lovecraft, The Picture in the House

Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

1927, J. B. S. Haldane, “Possible Worlds” in Possible Worlds and Other Papers, London: Chatto & Windus,

A queer look came over John Arable's face. He seemed almost ready to cry himself.

1952, E. B. White, Charlotte's Web, page 3

Though it may seem very queer,we've got no jobs to give you here,so we are sending you to Vietnam.

1965, “Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation”, Tom Paxton (lyrics), Tom Paxton (music)

Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. … When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

"Well, I'm—I'm jiggered," said Peter, and his voice also sounded queer.

1951, C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia

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

Now that the first flush of this catastrophe and grief is passed, I write to tell you that it is a judgement on the whole lot of you. Montgomerys, The Snob Queers like [the Earl of] Rosebery & certainly Christian hypocrite [William Ewart] Gladstone [...]

1894 November 1, John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, “”, in Michael S. Foldy, editor, The Trials of Oscar Wilde: Deviance, Morality, and Late-Victorian Society, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, published 1997, page 22

[...] fourteen young men were invited [...] with the premise that they would have the opportunity of meeting some of the prominent 'queers,' [...] and the further attraction that some 'chickens' as the new recruits in the vice are called, would be available.

1914 November, Eugene Fisher, “Transmittal to the Sacramento Bee [a.k.a Shakespeare Transmittal]”, in Sharon R. Ullman, editor, Sex Seen: The Emergence of Modern Sexuality in America, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, published 1998, page 64

It is the queers themselves whose answers to "What to do about it [homosexuality]" are most important. They, rather than the normals, cops, parents, or doctors are the persons most vitally concerned.

1940 January-June, Allen Bernstein, “What to do about it: Queers”, in Millions of Queers (Our Homo America), [Unpublished MS of the United States National Library of Medicine], page 132

Any blow against the queer is really a blow struck against a part of ourselves which we cannot accept or understand. I think in every case it would be correct to say that someone with a strong hostility toward homosexuals has a latent homosexual drive equal to the hostility.

1959 May, David McReynolds, “McReynolds Reply to [Seymour] Krim”, in Mattachine Review, volume V, number 5, Los Angeles: Mattachine Society, page 11, column 2

If you asked the man in the modern street for his opinion of homosexuality, he would probably reply, 'I've nothing against queers myself but I wouldn't like one of them to marry my father.'

1968, Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant, London: Cape, page 207

Queers are under siege.Queers are being attacked on all front and I'm afraid it's ok with us.In 1969, Queers were attacked. It wasn't ok. Queers fought back, took the streets. SHOUTED.

1990 June, Queers Read This, Published Anonymously by Queers , page 2, column 3

He also voiced his dislike for gays, stating: 'I don't believe in queers. I don't like queers. I don't hate them as a person, but what they do is wrong and an abomination against God.'

2013 February 5, “Football coach suspended for Michelle Obama insult”, in USA Today‎

Gentrification often starts with the artists, revolutionaries, freaks, transfolks, and queers (what I would call my people) moving into poor neighborhoods inhabited by people of color.

2014, Inga Muscio, Autobiography of a Blue-eyed Devil

You're shoving the queer.

1913, Rex Stout, Her Forbidden Knight, Carroll & Graf, published 1997, page 133

I was a lot more apt to queer it than help it.

1955, Rex Stout, "When a Man Murders...", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, page 78

"But lor-a-mussy, Jacob, how could a woman get away from here with all her boxes in the middle of the night?""That's what queered me," and Spink slowly shook his head, "and queered a good many; for of course it got newsed about […] "

1887, G. W. Appelton, chapter II, in A Terrible Legacy: A Tale of the South Downs‎, London: Ward and Downey, page 12

"Where do you come from?" Stanley queered.

1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud; A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter V

"Food is what queered the party. We ordered a big supper to be sent up to the room about two o'clock. Alec didn't give the waiter a tip, so I guess the little bastard snitched."

1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise‎, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, Book Two, Chapter IV, pages 270-271

Well, then I got buried—shell dropped, and the dug-out caved in—and that queered me. They sent me home.

1926, D. H. Lawrence, “Glad Ghosts”, in The Complete Short Stories, volume 3, Penguin, published 1977, page 678

If I go, for instance, to the history of the church in Latin America, and decide to queer the history of the Jesuitic Missions, I may find that, in many ways, the missions were more sexual than Christian.

2003, Marcella Althaus-Reid, The Queer God, page 9

Jonathan Goldberg further explores the implications of queering history in his essay in the same volume.

2006, Carla Freccero, Queer/Early/Modern, page 80

We might say that there has been a ‘queering’ of urban studies insofar as the metropolitan lives, subcultures and social movements of gays and lesbians are now seen as valid objects of study.

2013, Mark Davidson, Deborah Martin, chapter 8, in Urban Politics: Critical Approaches, SAGE

Ah, but she was the queer old skeowsha anyhow, Anna Livia, trinkettoes!”

1939, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

Page 6: Tony: Yeah, he's a queer smily fecker, ain't he?Page 14: Tony: I'll tell yeh one thing Conway he's trainin' queer hard for it!

1988, Billy Roche, A Handful of Stars, act I, pages 6, 14