Word.ws English Dictionary

dunsels

dunsels is the plural of dunsel.

Meaning of dunsel

Noun

dunsel (plural dunsels)

  1. Something (especially part of a vessel) that is useless, or superfluous or unnecessary.
    • If I'm not part of the crew and earn my keep, then I'm a dunsel. And you'll not have a dunsel aboard long […]1982, Marteen Dee Graham, Silver Sundown, New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing, →ISBN, page 42
  2. (broadly) A captain of a vessel who has little or no practical use.
    • McCoy: “Who the blazes is ‘Captain Dunsel’?” / Spock: “Dunsel, Doctor, is a term used by midshipmen at Starfleet Academy. It refers to a part which serves no useful purpose.”[1968, D[orothy] C[atherine] Fontana, “The Ultimate Computer”, in Star Trek: The Original Series, season 2, episode 53 (DVD), Hollywood, Calif.: Paramount Pictures, published 2014, →ISBN

Forms of dunsels

alternative formdunsails

Questions about dunsels

What is dunsels the plural of?
Dunsels is the plural of dunsel.

Words near dunsels in the dictionary

  1. Dunscore
  2. Dunscroft
  3. dunsel
  4. dunsel cap
  5. dunsel caps
  6. dunsels
  7. Dunsfold
  8. Dunsford
  9. dunsh
  10. dunshed
  11. dunshes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dunsels (page history and authors); dunsel (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “dunsels.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dunsels. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.