Word.ws English Dictionary

gunsel

/ˈɡʌnsəl/

gunsel noun: synonym of catamite: a young man kept by an elder as a (usually passive) homosexual partner.

Noun (1)

gunsel (plural gunsels)

  1. (dated, slang) Synonym of catamite: a young man kept by an elder as a (usually passive) homosexual partner.
    • The boy’s eyes […] ran over Spade’s body from shoulders to knees […]
      “Another thing,” Spade repeated, glaring at the boy: “Keep that gunsel away from me while you’re making up your mind. I’ll kill him […] ”1929, Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, [p. http://books.google.com/books?id=1uVajyyVaVkC&pg=RA1-PA13 13]
    Synonyms:
    catamite
  2. (dated, slang) Synonym of bottom: a passive partner in a male homosexual relationship.
    Synonyms:
    bottom
  3. (dated, slang) Synonym of bitch: a man forced or coerced into a homosexual relationship.
    Synonyms:
    bitch

Noun (2)

gunsel (plural gunsels)

  1. A gun-carrying hoodlum or other criminal.
    • There's somebody comin. I think it's that gunsel.1992, Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, →ISBN
    • The two gunsels waited for him on each side of the doorway, gun-hands bulging in their coat pockets.1944, Brett Halliday, Murder and the Married Virgin, →ISBN

Synonyms of gunsel

Forms of gunsel

pluralgunsels

Origin of gunsel

From Yiddish גענדזל (gendzl, “gosling”), from Middle High German gensel, diminutive of gans (“goose”).

By misunderstanding of the 1929 Maltese Falcon quotation above (1.1) (which survived in a popular 1941 film adaptation). The novel was originally serialized in a magazine, Black Mask, whose editor refused to allow vulgarities. Hammett used the word gunsel knowing that the editor would likely misunderstand it as relating to gun, and therefore allow it.

Questions about gunsel

What does gunsel mean?
Gunsel means synonym of catamite: a young man kept by an elder as a (usually passive) homosexual partner.
What part of speech is gunsel?
Gunsel is a noun.
How do you pronounce gunsel?
Gunsel is pronounced /ˈɡʌnsəl/.
What is the plural of gunsel?
The plural of gunsel is gunsels.

Words near gunsel in the dictionary

  1. guns for
  2. guns off
  3. guns up
  4. guns-for-hire
  5. Gunsan
  6. gunsel
  7. gunsels
  8. gunshed
  9. gunsheds
  10. gunshield
  11. gunshields

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gunsel (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-gunsel.wav.

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