Word.ws English Dictionary

gunsels

gunsels is the plural of gunsel.

Meaning of gunsel

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

Questions about gunsels

What is gunsels the plural of?
Gunsels is the plural of gunsel.

Words near gunsels in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gunsels (page history and authors); 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.

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