queer [E16th] There is some doubt as to the origin of queer, but it may come from German quer ‘oblique, perverse’. ‘Eccentric’ and ‘strange’ were early senses, though there was also the notion ‘of questionable character, dubious’. The meaning ‘unwell, ill’ dates from the mid 18th century, although it is often avoided now because of the potential confusion with the sense ‘homosexual’, recorded from the late 19th century.

To queer someone’s pitch is to spoil their chances of doing something, especially secretly or maliciously. This started out as 19th-century slang. The ‘pitch’ in question was probably the spot where street performers stationed themselves or the site of a market trader’s stall. There’s nowt so queer as folk is first recorded in the mid 19th century. Nowt is a Northern English variant of nought, ‘nothing’.