gayness

noun

Etymology: From Middle English gaynesse, equivalent to gay + -ness.

1. The state of being gay (colorful or festive); display or dressiness.

   “And truly, at a short butt, which some men doth use, the peacock feather doth seldom keep up the shaft either right or level, it is so rough and heavy ; so that many men, which have taken them up for gayness, hath laid them down again for profit:”

   “Let me ſpeak prowdly: Tell the Conſtable, ⁠/ We are but Warriors for the working-day: / Our Gayneſſe and our Gilt are all beſmyrcht / With raynie Marching in the painefull field.”

2. The state of being gay (cheerful); gaiety.
3. The state of being gay (homosexual); homosexuality; demeanor stereotypically representative of it.

   “You cannot blame their gayness, their queerness, their homosexuality on sudden wealth.”

   “Tell Al Sublette I met a great new pianist called Cecil Taylor, [he] plays like [Oscar] Peterson gone Classical, fast runs but Brubeck-Stravinsky-Prokofieff chords, a Juilliard classicist—He, like [James] Baldwin, [is] colored, [and] I think gay,—Baldwin is gay. I don’t dig all this gayness.”