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.

Usage notes

Although the term is derived from the name of the character Don Quixote, the letters qu and x are both read as is usual for English spelling ().