Gunzel
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A railway or tram enthusiast; particularly (formerly derogatory) one who is overly enthusiastic or foolish. Australia
"'There're people who have an intellectual impairment,' he said, 'and studying trains seems a natural thing for them to gravitate to. And then there're people who have more of a hobby-style interest in it.' […] He feels gunzels are misunderstood by the outside world …"
- 2 An enthusiast or geek with a specific interest. Australia, broadly
"I ask him about Australian trainspotters. 'Do such people exist?' / 'We call them train gunzels. A gunzel is a person who is really stuck on one thing. In Sydney you get guys on the platforms. This carriage here is the CDF924 – that's the number for Matilda's Restaurant. The guys on the platform will say, "Oh, I haven't seen that for a while"[…]'"
- 3 Alternative spelling of gunsel. US, alt-of, alternative
- 1 To engage in railway enthusiast activities. intransitive
Example
More examples"'There're people who have an intellectual impairment,' he said, 'and studying trains seems a natural thing for them to gravitate to. And then there're people who have more of a hobby-style interest in it.' […] He feels gunzels are misunderstood by the outside world …"
Etymology
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).
More for "gunzel"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.