104: On the etymology of the word “queer” 

Written and published by Linden Alexander Pentecost, published on the 18th of May 2026. Article contains 530 words.

One of my ex's said that she liked the idea that the word “queer” was being claimed back by non straight people to describe themselves. I like this too. I have occasionally but not often heard it used in an insulting way, mainly in southern English linguistic contexts. My grandmother on the other hand uses the word in a non-insulting way closer to its original semantic meaning. For example back in 2011 we were driving along the coastline, and she pointed across the water to a forested area and said “there's that queer field”. The “queer field” in question was referred to as such by my Northern English grandma, because the field is located at the top of an otherwise completely forested and also rocky hill, its situation and presence therefore being unusual, not “out of place” but outside of, and displaying a different geometry from that of the ordinary ordering of reality around us. 

The word is thought to come from Low German “queer” meaning “off-centre”, and this is likely a cognate, but the word could also be indigenous to Britain too. This idea of being “off centre” again is not negative but is indicative of geometry, time and dimension that does not fit our more common collective human reality. The word might furthermore be related to Indo European roots meaning to turn or twist, in a sense making this root semantically akin to the *wVr- root which gives us words like “warp” and “wart” I my opinion, as well as “war” which shows a more negative context and “war” as in used in the context of a title given to certain ancient mounds in Britain and in Germany. The fact that mountains and hills also involve a kind of geological twisting and turning also mean this root could be cognate to for example Finnish vuori - mountain, dialectal Finmish and Meänkieli vaara etc. The specific root behind “queer” shows an initial *kw- prefix perhaps adding classification and further meaning, in a more general sense a *tw- prefix is added more commonly in Indo-European, also giving us English “thwart” which originally meant and referred to the action of opposing the norm, being perverse or crossing something i.e. moving in relation to something from a different direction to what is the norm, again this “perverse” meaning here was not I think originally negative, but applies to non straight relationships, polyamory, things like that - relationships and ways of relating to love between consenting adults that use different formats of geometry and energy giving and receiving, which relate differently to the spiritual and physical dimensions of reality, than monogamous straight relationships. Which is not to say that these root words and the word “queer” can not also apply to monogamous and/or straight relationships, because of course even in monogamous straight relationships the dynamics of energy and connection to the wider cosmos and creative forces can be unique and different in myriad of beautiful ways. 

I hope that this article was interesting. Thanks for reading :)