Forms: 6 queir, queyr, que(e)re, 7 quer, 7– queer. [Of doubtful origin.
Commonly regarded as a. G. quer (MHG. twer, see THWART), cross, oblique, squint, perverse, wrongheaded; but the date at which the word appears in Sc. is against this, and the prominent sense does not precisely correspond to any of the uses of G. quer. There are few examples prior to 1700.]
1. Strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric, in appearance or character. Also, of questionable character, suspicious, dubious.
1508. Dunbar, Flyting, 218. Heir cumis our awin queir Clerk.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VIII. Prol. 43. The cadgear … Calland the colȝear ane knaif and culroun full queyr.
1550. Bale, Eng. Votaries, II. 21. Ye Chronycles … contayne muche more truthe than their quere legendes.
1598. Marston, Pygmal., i. 138. Show thy queere substance, worthlesse, most absurd.
1621. W. Yonge, Diary, 27 Aug. (Camden), 43. The emperor is in that quer case, that he is not able to bid battle.
1663. Flagellum or O. Cromwell, 109. That the world may see what queer hypocrites his attendants were.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 474, ¶ 2. Let me be known all at once for a queer Fellow, and avoided.
1742. Richardson, Pamela, III. 224. I have heard of many queer Pranks among my Bedfordshire Neighbours.
1840. Dickens, Barn. Rudge, xxxix. It was a queer fancy … but he was a queer subject altogether.
1870. H. Smart, Race for Wife, i. In the queer old room with its still queerer attempts at decoration.
absol. 1826. Scott, Woodstock (1894), II. 19. His appearance bordered … upon what is vulgarly called the queer.
2. Not in a normal condition; out of sorts; giddy, faint or ill: esp. in phr. to feel (or look) queer. Also slang: Drunk.
1800. W. B. Rhodes, Bomb. Fur., i. (1830), 8. We feel ourselves a little queer.
1826. Sporting Mag., XVIII. 285. Galloping … with a rummish team, and himself queer.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, i. I am so very queer that I must ask you for a glass of wine and a morsel of that cake.
1885. Miss Braddon, Wyllard’s Weird, I. i. 39. That business on the railway was enough to make any man feel queer.
3. Queer Street: An imaginary street where people in difficulties are supposed to reside; hence, any difficulty, fix, or trouble, bad circumstances, debt, illness, etc. slang.
1837. Lytton, E. Maltrav., IV. vii. You are in the wrong box—planted in Queer Street, as we say in London.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., III. i. Queer Street is full of lodgers just at present.
1886. Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll, i. (ed. 2), 11. The more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.
4. Comb., as queer-looking, -shaped, -tempered.
1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, II. 171. A little, modest, queer-looking brown girl.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., x. You are the longest-headed, queerest-tempered, old coiner of gold and silver there ever was.
1891. T. Hardy, Tess (1900), 105/1. The queer-shaped flints.
