From Yiddish גענדזל (gendzl, “gosling”), from Middle High German gensel, diminutive of gans (“goose”).
Meanings
(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]
(dated, slang) Synonym of bottom: a passive partner in a male homosexual relationship.
(dated, slang) Synonym of bitch: a man forced or coerced into a homosexual relationship.
By misunderstanding of the 1929 Maltese Falcon quotation above (1.1) (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.
Meanings
A gun-carrying hoodlum or other criminal.
The two gunsels waited for him on each side of the doorway, gun-hands bulging in their coat pockets. 1944, Brett Halliday, Murder and the Married Virgin, →ISBN:
There's somebody comin. I think it's that gunsel. 1992, Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, →ISBN: