fagele

a homosexual man

a little bird

a young girl

Alternatively spelled "fegele", this literally is the diminutive of "fogel", which means "bird" in old German. It is used in normal parlance to mean "homosexual man" or "young girl". There is reason to believe the word "fag" in English came to have its more derogatory meaning in conjugation with this word, not because of it. Before the 1920's, "fag" was used to refer to someone tired or a boarding school underling. However, there is also little evidence that "fagele" referred to homosexuals in Eastern Europe.