Gay means attracted to people of your own sex. A gay man, gay rights, openly gay.
It is the ordinary neutral term and the one most people prefer to the clinical alternative. It is used of men most often and of women too, though many women say lesbian. Gay marriage and gay rights are standard collocations. The word meant cheerful for centuries and shifted through the twentieth century; the older sense now survives only in old writing and in names.
1adjectivegayAttracted to people of your own sex.
“Her brother is gay and has been married to his husband for ten years.”
2adjectivecheerfulCheerful, in older use.
“The streets were gay with flags and music on the day of the festival.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
gay is an orientation.
Old French gai meant joyful or lively. The sense of homosexual developed through the twentieth century, becoming the standard public term from the 1970s.
Middle English
gay
English, today
gay
Built from
From Middle English gay. From 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 (“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, step”), from ǵʰeh₁- (“to leave”),Marlies Philippa et al., eds., Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands, A-
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA