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Effete vs Gay - What's the difference?

effete | gay |

As an adjective effete

is (label) of substances, quantities etc: exhausted, spent, worn-out.

As a noun gay is

nape.

As a verb gay is

to crow.

effete

English

Alternative forms

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Adjective

(en adjective)
  • (label) Of substances, quantities etc: exhausted, spent, worn-out.
  • *, II.4.1.v:
    • Nature is not effÅ“te , as he saith, or so lavish, to bestow all her gifts upon an age, but hath reserved some for posterity, to shew her power, that she is still the same, and not old or consumed.
  • Of people: lacking strength or vitality; feeble, powerless, impotent.
  • *
    • Amid the effete monarchies and princedoms of feudal Europe, morally and materially exhausted by the Thirty Years' War, the only hope of resistance to France lay in the little Republic of merchants, Holland.
  • Decadent, weak through self-indulgence.
  • Effeminate.
  • *
    • a good-humored, effete boy brought up by maiden aunts.

    Derived terms

    * effetely * effeteness

    gay

    English

    Proper noun

    (en proper noun)
  • , originally a nickname for a cheerful or lively person.
  • from the word gay, "joyful"; rare today.
  • . Also a shortened form of Gabriel, Gaylord and similar names, or transferred from the surname.
  • * 1992 , Unto the Sons , Ballantine Books 1993, ISBN 0804110336, page 15
    • - - - my father's father, Gaetano Talese ( whose name I inherited after my birth in 1932, in the anglicized from of "Gay "), was an atypically fearless traveler,
  • * 2004 , Bad Dirt , Fourth Estate, ISBN 0007196911, page 32
    • "Mr Gay Brawls. What a name."
    "It didn't use to mean what it means now. Plenty were named Gay'. Even in Nevada. Was old ' Gay Pitch had a gas station in Winnemucca. Nobody thought nothin about it and he raised a railroad car of kids.- - -

    Anagrams

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