Word.ws English Dictionary

gunzel

Syllables: gun·zel/ˈɡʌnzl̩/

gunzel noun: a railway or tram enthusiast; particularly (formerly derogatory) one who is overly enthusiastic or foolish. Also the alternative spelling of gunsel.

gunzel: a railway or tram enthusiast; particularly (formerly derogatory) one who is overly enthusiastic or...
Image: Andrew Tatlow, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

gunzel (plural gunzels)

  1. (Australia) A railway or tram enthusiast; particularly (formerly derogatory) one who is overly enthusiastic or foolish.
    • 'There're people who have an intellectual impairment,' he said, 'and studying trains seems a natural thing for them to gravitate to. And then there're people who have more of a hobby-style interest in it.' […] He feels gunzels are misunderstood by the outside world …2008, Mark Dapin, “Trainspotting”, in Strange Country: Travels in a Very Different Australia, Sydney, N.S.W.: Pan Macmillan Australia, →ISBN, book 4 (From Melbourne to Sydney), page 293
    • [L]ike many model train enthusiasts, he now takes some pride in being called a foamer, or a gunzel, or even a gricer – all names for those who enjoy model trains.2009 January 9, Jeremy Lee, “Foamers, Gunzels, and Gricers: Attention All Foamers, Gunzels, and Gricers – the Warrnambool Model Railway Club are about to Display Their Wares Once Again”, in ABC South...
    Synonyms:
    ferroequinologist, foamer, railfan, trainspotter, siderodromophile
  2. (Australia, broadly) An enthusiast or geek with a specific interest.
    • I ask him about Australian trainspotters. 'Do such people exist?' / 'We call them train gunzels. A gunzel is a person who is really stuck on one thing. In Sydney you get guys on the platforms. This carriage here is the CDF924 – that's the number for Matilda's Restaurant. The guys on the platform...2016, Tom Chesshyre, Ticket to Ride: Around the World on 49 Unusual Train Journeys, Chichester, West Sussex: Summersdale Publishers, →ISBN

Verb

gunzel (third-person singular simple present gunzels, present participle (US) gunzeling or (UK) gunzelling, simple past and past participle (US) gunzeled or (UK) gunzelled)

  1. (intransitive) To engage in railway enthusiast activities.

Also used as

gunzel is also the alternative spelling of gunsel.

Examples of gunzel in a sentence

  • He wasn't a gunzel [tram obsessive], he was far more interested [in] his passengers.2011 December 31, Adam Carey, quoting John Andrews, “Tram driver who lived for the job was ‘last of his kind’”, in The Age, archived from...
  • At 2.27am when it slows to a halt at Bendigo railway station for a crew change, two young gunzels (rail fanatics) are waiting with cameras on the platform alongside the crew.2013 June 28, Darren Gray, “Riding the grain train: It weighs 3030 tonnes, is more than 600 metres long, and can take five kilometres to...
  • Well, Melbourne should be the "city of gunzels", says former tram conductor Roberto D'Andrea.2015 May 3, Hannah Francis, “Melbourne ‘connies’ celebrate Kew tram depot centenary”, in Brisbane Times:
  • Gunzels take note: the trial next generation reader has been installed on tram number 6008.2015 December 2, Adam Carey, “Faster myki readers being trialled on new E-Class trams”, in The Age, archived from the original on 22 Feb...

Synonyms of gunzel

Forms of gunzel

Noun
pluralgunzels
Verb
third-person singular presentgunzels
present participle USgunzeling
present participle UKgunzelling
past participle USgunzeled
past USgunzeled
past participle UKgunzelled
past UKgunzelled

Origin of gunzel

Origin uncertain; possibly from gunsel (“stupid or contemptible fellow, creep; young man kept for homosexual purposes, catamite”), from Yiddish גענדזל (gendzl, “gosling”), from Middle High German gensel, diminutive of gans (“goose”) (compare German Gänslein (“gosling”), from Gans (“goose”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰh₂éns (“goose”)). There is an unverified suggestion that the word was first used in the 1960s by staff of the Sydney Tramway Museum in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, to describe shabbily dressed trainspotters. They were apparently influenced by the word gunsel (“a gun-carrying hoodlum”), which had been popularized in the film The Maltese Falcon (1941) based on the 1929 novel of the same name by American author Dashiell Hammet (1894–1961).

Questions about gunzel

What does gunzel mean?
Gunzel means a railway or tram enthusiast; particularly (formerly derogatory) one who is overly enthusiastic or foolish.
How do you use gunzel in a sentence?
He wasn't a gunzel [tram obsessive], he was far more interested [in] his passengers.
What part of speech is gunzel?
Gunzel can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce gunzel?
Gunzel is pronounced /ˈɡʌnzl̩/ (UK).
What is the plural of gunzel?
The plural of gunzel is gunzels.

Words near gunzel in the dictionary

  1. gunyah
  2. gunyahs
  3. gunyang
  4. gunyas
  5. Gunz
  6. gunzel
  7. gunzeled
  8. gunzeling
  9. gunzelled
  10. gunzelling
  11. gunzels

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gunzel (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-gunzel.wav.

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