gaydar

American

[gey-dahr] / ˈgeɪ dɑr /

noun

Informal.

a person's purported intuitive or sensing ability to identify gay people.

gaydar British

/ ˈɡeɪdɑː /

noun

informal the supposed ability of a homosexual person to recognize whether another person is homosexual

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of gaydar

First recorded in 1980–85; gay ( def. ) + (ra)dar ( def. )

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

gaydar

But my gaydar was also going off big-time around Dorothy and Marshall, news they found amusing when I told them recently.

From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026

Even though my gaydar immediately found the queers in the room.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2024

"If you go through it, for many of us, it will tweak our gaydar looking at those 1950s issues - because there seems to be more bare-chested men than you'd expect," says Prof Bengry.

From BBC ● Jun. 2, 2021

I mean, in one of the interviews he’s done in the last few weeks, he used the word gaydar.

From Slate ● Apr. 4, 2019

Maybe I already show up on gaydar, even though I don’t clearly show up on my own.

From "Ask the Passengers" by A.S. King

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023