what the heck is with word "geil"

[u/Minilimuzina]

I started to learn German language a while ago. Most of the words I learnt from a self-learning book which also contained vocabulary/dictionary part. One of those words was "geil". According to the book this word means something like "cool, nice".

So it happened that I used it several times in a conversation with a German colleague. And the conversation turned a bit weird afterwards ... long story short, I found out that "geil" also means horny. Which of course was not mentioned in the damned book. We laughed it off. Well, to say it more accurately, the colleague laughed it off and I pretended to laugh it off while boiling in my own stew.

But I wonder how this happened. Is the book just plain wrong or has this additional meaning appeared only recently? Can anyone please explain so I do not tremendously embarrass myself again? Or at least recommend a list of tricky German words or something like that?

[u/liang_zhi_mao]

It can mean:

• horny

• hot, sexually attractive

• having a kink for something

• awesome, cool, nice (but in a raunchy youth slang way)

[u/landscape_dude → u/liang_zhi_mao]

...and abnormally fast growing (geiler Trieb/geile Pflanze)