Meaning

noun someone who practices homosexuality; having a sexual attraction to persons of the same sex

adjective bright and pleasant; promoting a feeling of cheer

adjective full of or showing high-spirited merriment; ; - Wordsworth

originFrom Middle English gay, from Old French gai (“joyful, laughing, merry”), usually thought to be a borrowing of Old Occitan gai (“impetuous, lively”), from Gothic *𐌲𐌰𐌷𐌴𐌹𐍃 (*gaheis, “impetuous”), merging with earlier Old French jai ("merry"; see jay), from Frankish *gāhi; both from Proto-Germanic *ganhuz, *ganhwaz (“sudden”). This is possibly derived from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰengʰ- (“to stride,…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0