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Green’s Dictionary of Slang

fey adj.

1. (US, also fay) homosexual, also n.

1932		‘R. Scully’ Scarlet Pansy 163: ‘[‘Fay L’Etrange’] certainly lives up to her name. She’s quite the queerest thing I’ve ever had in my classes’ .
1943		T. Williams letter 25 June in Letters to D. Windham 82: I am removed bodily and spiritually from the Lana Turner script, it being decided that my character was ‘too fay’ for Lana to deal with [Simes:DLSS].
1953		G. Legman More Limericks 423: A gorgeous young fay of Budapest / Just adored to de-pants and transvest [Simes:DLSS].
1963		Oz (Sydney) July 9/1: [T]hat Admiralty clerk, who was perhaps a little feyer that the usual run of Great Public School products [Simes:DLSS].
1970		‘T. Llewellyn’ Street Boys of Paris 57: [Christian] was also more masculine than Thierry [...] although he often played up to his friend and pretended to be as fey as Thierry was himself [Simes:DLSS].
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 73: effie [...] stereotype effeminate homosexual. Syn. fay.
1974		R. Dennis Pimp for the Dead [ebook] I’d heard it, too, the giveaway in his voice. Real fay. Not that I had anything against homosexuals.
1974		R. Dennis Deadly Cotton Heart in Complete Hardman 1040: ‘But he’s not fey?’ [...] ‘It might just be that thin-blood in the southern upper classes, but I’m not pissing at any urinals next to him.’.
1982		M. Greif Gay Bk Days 128/2: [Harold] Acton decided that [Robert Graves’]poetry was old-fashioned in its masculine stance [...] and that it lacked the proper fey spirit of the young Oxford dandies [Simes:DLSS].
1984		Adocate (L.A.) 17 Apr. 36/2: The cautionary tale is clear: Real men look good, but don’t think about it. When they do think about it, they turn fay [Simes:DLSS].
1995		J. Cohen Growing Up Gay 141: Lost in Space [...] quickly evolved into intergalactic camp, due largely to that largely unsung hero, the totally fey Dr Zachary Smith [Simes:DLSS].
1998		N. Drinnan Glove Pocket 76: [T]hat moment of drugged, slightly masculine and strangely fey passivity [Simes:DLSS].

2. see ofay n.

In derivatives

feyly (adj.)

in a fey manner, campily.

1958		Reporter 38/1: Bitterly in [...] Richard Wright’s The Outsider; feyly in Saroyan.
1965		London Mag. 67/1: Mary [...] is probably the best thing in it, feyly counting the Italian place-names against her lost children.
1981		Inversions (Sydney) 3/2: Effete/ two tone a balding Spaniard’ feyly alternates his knees/ and props a languid elbow on a friend [Simes:DLSS].
1997		‘Christain Fall’ King’s Men 50: He held his Harlequin mask rather feyly in one hand and a small goblet of wine with the other [Simes:DLSS].
2002		S. Reynolds Generation X in Duncombe Cultural Resistance Reader 127: MC1: (gasping feyly) Oh goshhhh!!! Keep the pagers rushing! [...] Deeper! Deeper into the groove.