Meaning

noun offensive term for an openly homosexual man

verb hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of

verb put in a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position

originAttested since about 1510, at first in Scots. Usually taken to be from Middle Low German (Brunswick dialect) queer (“oblique, off-center”) 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…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0