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Queer vs Indifferent - What's the difference?

queer | indifferent |

As verbs the difference between queer and indifferent

is that queer is to render an endeavor or agreement ineffective or null while indifferent is .

As an adjective queer

is (now|slightly|dated) weird, odd or different; whimsical.

As a noun queer

is (colloquial) a person who is or appears homosexual, or who has homosexual qualities.

As an adverb queer

is queerly.

queer

English

(wikipedia queer)

Adjective

(er)
  • (now, slightly, dated) Weird, odd or different; whimsical.
  • * (Washington Irving)
  • * 1865 , (Lewis Carroll), (w, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
  • “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.”
  • * , chapter=5
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=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.}}
  • (slightly, dated) Slightly unwell (mainly in'' ''to feel queer ).
  • * , chapter=5
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=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.}}
  • (colloquial) Homosexual.
  • More broadly: pertaining to sexual behaviour or identity which does not conform to conventional heterosexual standards, assumptions etc.
  • *1999 , (Judith Butler), Gender Trouble , Routledge 2002, Preface to 1999 edition:
  • *: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?
  • Synonyms

    * See also those of strange.

    Derived terms

    * queercore * queer fish * queerplatonic * queerish * queerly * queerness * queer theory

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (colloquial) A person who is or appears homosexual, or who has homosexual qualities.
  • (colloquial) A person of atypical sexuality or sexual identity.
  • (colloquial, vulgar, derogatory) General term of abuse, casting aspersions on target's sexuality; compare (gay).
  • Counterfeit money.
  • * 1913 , edition, ISBN 0786704446, page 133:
  • You're shoving the queer .

    Usage notes

    * The use of this word to mean "homosexual" was formerly, and is often still, considered pejorative. However, in the way that all language is dynamic and pliable, the word is also sometimes now used (primarily as adjective) as a neutral or even positive descriptive term, including by some (primarily younger) homosexuals. In its pejorative use, it is applied usually to males. In its modern neutral use, it is applied to all genders. * Some LGBT individuals now use the term as an all-inclusive term for the GLBTIQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Intersex, Queer) etc. community. This may include people who consider themselves to be politically (or otherwise sociologically) GLBTIQ without necessarily displaying, or even simply inclined towards behavior that is not heteronormative. This new usage is again by primarily younger people. * 'Queer' is also used as a positive term for people, some of whom reject mainstream-gay values and culture as exclusive and limiting. People who identify with this version of queer distance themselves from the commercialisation and (relatively) conformist values of the gay mainstream and embrace fluid and unconstrained definitions of sexuality and gender. There is some common ground between this definition of queer and the punk and DIY scenes. See also "genderqueer". * In the English dialect of the southern United States, the two senses of the adjective queer'' (''homosexual'' and ''weird, odd, different, or unwell'') are sometimes distinguished by pronunciation. Queer (''homosexual'') is pronounced (kwîr), queer (''weird, odd, different, or unwell'') is pronounced (kwär). This is generally considered old-fashioned and is only used when the word is emphasized, as in the phrase "''that's awful queer " (pronounced TH?ts ôr'f?l kwär). The distinction is dying out as that latter sense of the word dies out.

    Hypernyms

    * LGBTQ

    Derived terms

    * (l) * (l)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To render an endeavor or agreement ineffective or null.
  • * 1955 , edition, ISBN 0553249592, page 78:
  • I was a lot more apt to queer it than help it.
  • To reevaluate or reinterpret a work with an eye to sexual orientation and/or to gender, as by applying queer theory.
  • * 2003 , Marcella Althaus-Reid, The Queer God (page 9)
  • 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.
  • * 2006 , Carla Freccero, Queer/Early/Modern (page 80)
  • Jonathan Goldberg further explores the implications of queering history in his essay in the same volume.

    Synonyms

    * invalidate

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • queerly
  • indifferent

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Not caring or concerned; uninterested, apathetic.
  • He was indifferent to the proposal, since it didn't affect him, either way.
  • Mediocre, usually used negatively in modern usage.
  • The long distance and the indifferent roads made the journey impossible.
    The performance of Blue Jays has been '''indifferent'' this season.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • The staterooms are in indifferent order.
  • Having no preference or bias, being impartial.
  • ''I am indifferent between the two plans.
  • * Addison
  • indifferent in his choice to sleep or die
  • Not making a difference; without significance or importance.
  • Even if one appliance consumes an indifferent amount of energy when left on stand-by overnight, together they can represent 10% of the electricity demand of a household.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Dangers are to me indifferent .
  • * Jeremy Taylor
  • Everything in the world is indifferent but sin.
  • * Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • His slightest and most indifferent acts were odious in the clergyman's sight.
  • (mechanics) Being in the state of neutral equilibrium.
  • Quotations

    * , act 4, scene 1: *: Let their heads be sleekly combed their blue coats brushed and their garters of an indifferent knit

    Adverb

  • (obsolete) To some extent, in some degree (intermediate between very'' and ''not at all ); moderately, tolerably, fairly.
  • The face of the Moon appearing to me to be full of indifferent high mountains...

    Usage notes

    * Now obsolete, but very common c. 1600-1730.

    References

    * ----