gaydar

[gey-dahr]

noun

Informal.

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

gaydar

/ ˈɡeɪdɑː /

noun

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of gaydar¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of gaydar¹

C20 from _gay + ( _ra ) _dar

Example Sentences

I’m not sure what the straight equivalent of gaydar is — “straightdar” just doesn’t have the same ring — but I am pretty sure I don’t have it.

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

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He also fronted a show on sister station Scala Radio, and helped launch the UK's first LGBT+ station Gaydar Radio, as creative director in 2001.

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While Perry quietly rages against his new role as the defender of the petit bourgeois and Della entertains the offer of a date from a woman she encounters at a restaurant — whose gaydar, it seems, is next-gen — the case that will seemingly dominate the season unfolds.

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It’s hard to know whether she was conscious of it — gaydar? — but in retrospect, it reflects a feminist understanding that homophobia is an element of the misogyny she herself had faced.

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