queer, quer

Universität Wien

"The queer [(queere)] reading of the Bible appears to be in fact a form of reading that stands in opposition [(quer)] to Holy Scripture."

     Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger, "Die Bibel queer lesen?  Zu einem umstritten Heft des katholischen Bibelwerks," Communio blog, 29 May 2026.  As I don't have an etymological dictionary of German ready-to-hand, here is the etymology the OED gives for the adjective "queer":  "perhaps < (or perhaps even cognate with) German quer transverse, oblique, crosswise, at right angles, obstructive, (of things) going wrong (now rare), (of a person) peculiar (now obsolete in this sense), (of a glance) directed sideways, especially in a surreptitious or hostile manner (now rare), (of opinion and behaviour) at odds with others (see thwart adv.), but the semantic correspondence is not exact, and the figurative senses in German are apparently much later developments than the English word."