It didn't go from meaning cheerful to then suddenly homosexual. It meant promiscuous and immoral in between. The victorian dictionary was implying it is a dres

It didn't go from meaning cheerful to then suddenly homosexual. It meant promiscuous and immoral in between. The victorian dictionary was implying it is a dress worn by a hooker. from your own source (wikipedia/gay): > A gay woman was a prostitute, a gay man a womanizer, and a gay house a brothel.[2] An example is a letter read to a London court in 1885 during the prosecution of brothel madam and procuress Mary Jeffries that had been written by a girl while slaved to a French brothel: > "I write to tell you it is a gay house...Some captains came in the other night, and the mistress wanted us to sleep with them."[13]