Etymology

homosexual

ho·mo·sex·ual
H4O1M3O1S1E1X8U1A1L1

Today it means: Sexually and/or romantically attracted to members of the same sex, such as a man who is attracted to other men or a woman who is attracted to other women; gay. (Typically used in the sense of sole/exclusive attraction.) Full definition →

German homosexua ← Latin sexuālis ← Proto-Indo-European *h₂élisder.?
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*sem-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*somHós
  3. Proto-Hellenic*homós
  4. Ancient Greekὁμός (homós)
  5. Germanhomo-
  6. Proto-Indo-European*sek-
  7. Proto-Indo-European*séks-u-s
  8. Proto-Italic*seksus
  9. Proto-Indo-European*sek-
  10. Proto-Indo-European*sékh₁yeti
  11. Proto-Italic*sekaō
  12. Latinsecō
  13. Latinsecāre?
  14. Latinsexus
  15. Proto-Indo-European*h₂el-
  16. Proto-Indo-European*h₂élisder.?
  17. Latinsexuālis
  18. Germansexual
  19. Germanhomosexua
  20. English todayhomosexual

Borrowed from German homosexual, from homo- (“same”) + sexual (“relating to sex or sexuality”), coined by Karl Maria Kertbeny in 1868, and popularized in Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis (2nd ed. 1887, in German) and Charles Gilbert Chaddock's 1892 English translation thereof (compare bisexual), displacing the slightly older term Uranian. Equivalent to homo- + -sexual.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.