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homosexual

adjectivenouncommon in dialogue

  • //ˌhɒməʊˈsɛksjuːəl//
  • //ˌhɒməʊˈsɛkʃuːəl//
  • //ˌhəʊməʊˈsɛksjuːəl//
  • //ˌhəʊməʊˈsɛkʃuːəl//

Sexually and/or romantically attracted to members of the same sex, such as a man who is attracted to other men or a woman who is attracted to other women; gay. (Typically used in the sense of sole/exclusive attraction.)

adjective

  1. 1

    Sexually and/or romantically attracted to members of the same sex, such as a man who is attracted to other men or a woman who is attracted to other women; gay. (Typically used in the sense of sole/exclusive attraction.)

    No, it wouldn't make a difference if the applicant was homosexual.

    [H]e said he had never noticed anything homosexual in himself.

    "Significant results indicate that Swedes would choose a more masculine partner the more homosexual they are, and that Finns would choose a more attractive partner the more homosexual they are."

  2. 2

    Between two people of the same sex; gay.

    Most western countries have repealed laws against homosexual activity between consenting adults.

    Shatner: Have you ever had a homosexual experience? Maher: No. Why, are you...? But it's early!

  3. 3

    datedIntended for or used by homosexuals, as a nightclub, a bar, etc.

    A petition drive to close all homosexual establishments in response to an assumed general AIDS contagion was begun in late October, according to The Weekly News of Miami.

Etymology

Borrowed from German homosexual, from homo- (“same”) + sexual (“relating to sex or sexuality”), coined by Karl Maria Kertbeny in 1868, and popularized in Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis (2nd ed. 1887, in German) and Charles Gilbert Chaddock's 1892 English translation thereof (compare bisexual), displacing the slightly older term Uranian. Equivalent to homo- + -sexual.

noun

  1. 1

    A person who is sexually attracted solely or primarily to others of the same sex.

    It must not be understood that homosexuality is confined to women. Relationships of this type exist also among men, and in taki-taki are to be found words which are specific designations for male homosexuals, who are termed hantimąn, or awɛge.

    Soon, we got up, walked around the west side — toward the "meat rack" — the gay part of the park. There, it was as if someone had hung a line of marionettes on the railing: the lonesome young homosexuals, legs dangling, looking, waiting for that one-night's sexual connection...

    It was unheard-of for those of us who are 30-something or older to have had an openly gay role model when we were young. Homosexuals weren't depicted in the media in a positive light, if at all.

Forms

plural
homosexuals
comparative
more homosexual
superlative
most homosexual
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).