gayola

English

Etymology

gay +‎ -ola

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -əʊlə

Noun

gayola (uncountable)

1. (chiefly historical) The practice of American police departments extorting bribes from gay bars, especially in the 1950s and 60s, in return for not raiding them; such a bribe.
   • 1998, The American Journey: Derived from retrieving the American past, →ISBN:

     Every one of the bars that testified against the police department during the gayola inquiry was shut down.

   • 2006, Journal of the History of Sexuality:

     Policing power over gay bars was thus shifted from the SFPD's beat officers to the mayor and the chief of police. In the wake of the gayola scandal Mayor Christopher launched an offensive against homosexual drinking establishments.

   • 2008, William N. Eskridge Jr., Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Laws in America, 1861-2003, Penguin, →ISBN:

     One reporter asked the attorneys involved in one of the gayola prosecutions whether “gay bars” were acceptable.

Spanish

Etymology

Likely from Aragonese gayola, from Late Latin caveola, diminutive from Latin cavea (“cage”) (whence Old Spanish gabia, gavia). Compare Portuguese gaiola. Doublet of jaula, which was borrowed through French.

Pronunciation

 

• IPA^(key): /ɡaˈʝola/ [ɡaˈʝo.la]

• IPA^(key): (everywhere but Argentina and Uruguay) /ɡaˈʝola/ [ɡaˈʝo.la]
• IPA^(key): (Buenos Aires and environs) /ɡaˈʃola/ [ɡaˈʃo.la]
• IPA^(key): (elsewhere in Argentina and Uruguay) /ɡaˈʒola/ [ɡaˈʒo.la]

• Rhymes: -ola
• Syllabification: ga‧yo‧la

Noun

gayola f (plural gayolas)

1. (dated) cage

   Synonym: jaula

2. (colloquial) clink (prison)

   Synonym: cárcel

3. (colloquial) handjob, wank

Further reading

• “gayola”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014