Words similar to gunsel

Example sentences for: gunsel

How can you use “gunsel” in a sentence? Here are some example sentences to help you improve your vocabulary:

When the book was coming out in Black Mask , in 1929, the editor presumably took gunsel to be a synonym of gunman , and in that sense it was very widely adopted by Hammett's imitators, by the general public, and even, it seems, by the underworld.
There is support, in both the OED 2nd Supplement and the Dictionary of American Slang , by Wentworth and Flexner, for Tony Thorne's definition, in the Bloomsbury Dictionary of Contemporary Slang [XVII, 3], of `callow youth' for gunsel . That appears to be the primary meaning of the word, whose suggested definition is from Yiddish genzel, gantzel and/ or German Gänslein, Gänzel `gosling, young goose.
“In the Queen's Parlor” specifically refers to Hammett's use of gunsel and describes him as meaning it in the “catamite” sense.
I doubt that it is accurate to define gunsel as a `callow youth,' a sense that probably rubbed off from the character played by Elisha Cook, Jr. in The Maltese Falcon: though he was referred to (by Bogart, as I recall) as a `punk' and `gunsel' and was portrayed as ineffectual, that does not justify a transferred definition: gunsel , probably from Yiddish, is a less common, old-fashioned term for `gunman, body guard, torpedo, hit man,' and the like, simply a `criminal who carries a gun,' and needs no (additional) pejorative treatment.
That vowel would not yield the first vowel of gunsel, hence a Yiddish origin for it is doubtful.