Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
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noun
A railway or tram enthusiast; particularly (formerly derogatory) one who is overly enthusiastic or foolish.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Australia
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
An enthusiast or geek with a specific interest.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Australia, broadly
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Alternative spelling of gunsel.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: US, alt-of, alternative
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To engage in railway enthusiast activities.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: intransitive
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Origin uncertain; possibly from gunsel (“stupid or contemptible fellow, creep; young man kept for homosexual purposes, catamite”), from Yiddish גענדזל (gendzl, “gosling”), from Middle High German gensel, diminutive of gans (“goose”) (compare German Gänslein (“gosling”), from Gans (“goose”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵhh2éns (“goose”)). There is an unverified suggestion that the word was first used in the 1960s by staff of the Sydney Tramway Museum in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, to describe shabbily dressed trainspotters. They were apparently influenced by the word gunsel (“a gun-carrying hoodlum”), which had been popularized in the film The Maltese Falcon (1941) based on the 1929 novel of the same name by American author Dashiell Hammet (1894–1961).
