Gowns & Gunsels

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Gunsel Noun (plural gunsels)

    1. A young man kept for homosexual purposes; a catamite
    2. A gun-carrying hoodlum or other criminal. (By misunderstanding of a 1929 Maltese Falcon quotation (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.)

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