slang
: the supposed ability to recognize through observation or intuition that a person is gay
Examples of gaydar in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The gaydar of a founding mother and a Jesuit moralist will always be far more attuned than the intuition of a mob of reactionary haters.
—
Literary Hub, 4 Nov. 2025
All these tropes — gaydar and girls without it — make for easier narratives, but the presumption that the codes of the heart can be deciphered on the body is one that, outside the world of absurdist comedy — and probably sometimes within it as well — can wound and damage.
—Kelly Foster Lundquist, PEOPLE, 2 Nov. 2025
Even though my gaydar immediately found the queers in the room.
—Jaclyn Cosgrove, Los Angeles Times, 6 June 2024
Oh stars as Jenny, who has purple-streaked hair, tattoos, acrylic nails, and some apparently bad gaydar.
—Vulture, 7 Sep. 2023
My gaydar even doesn’t work that well in the present, let alone retroactively.
—Fox News, 17 June 2019
The authors were then ready to pit their prediction model against humans in what would become a notorious gaydar competition.
—Heather Murphy, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2017
Women's gaydar improves during ovulation.
—Seriously Science, Discover Magazine, 26 Jan. 2016
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Literary Hub, 4 Nov. 2025
All these tropes — gaydar and girls without it — make for easier narratives, but the presumption that the codes of the heart can be deciphered on the body is one that, outside the world of absurdist comedy — and probably sometimes within it as well — can wound and damage.
—Kelly Foster Lundquist, PEOPLE, 2 Nov. 2025
Even though my gaydar immediately found the queers in the room.
—Jaclyn Cosgrove, Los Angeles Times, 6 June 2024
Oh stars as Jenny, who has purple-streaked hair, tattoos, acrylic nails, and some apparently bad gaydar.
—Vulture, 7 Sep. 2023
My gaydar even doesn’t work that well in the present, let alone retroactively.
—Fox News, 17 June 2019
The authors were then ready to pit their prediction model against humans in what would become a notorious gaydar competition.
—Heather Murphy, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2017
Women's gaydar improves during ovulation.
—Seriously Science, Discover Magazine, 26 Jan. 2016
Cite this Entry
“Gaydar.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gaydar. Accessed 18 Nov. 2025.
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