Meaning & use
Gunsel
Last updated
Slang for a young, inexperienced criminal or hoodlum; also used in classic detective fiction to mean an armed henchman or gunman.
See it in a sentence
The private eye dismissed him as a small-time gunsel working for the mob boss.
In the film's climax, the gunsel is left holding the gun while his boss escapes.
A note on using this word
"Gunsel" originally meant a naive young tramp in early 20th-century slang; Dashiell Hammett famously used it in "The Maltese Falcon," and editors mistakenly assumed it meant "gunman," a meaning that later stuck.
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