gunsel

Meaning

Noun

• Synonym of catamite: a young man kept by an elder as a (usually passive) homosexual partner.
• Synonym of bottom: a passive partner in a male homosexual relationship.
• Synonym of bitch: a man forced or coerced into a homosexual relationship.
• A gun-carrying hoodlum or other criminal.

Origin

• From Yiddish גענדזל, from Middle High German gensel, diminutive of gans.
• By misunderstanding of the 1929 Maltese Falcon quotation above (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.