- Gun moll
A gun moll is a female companion of male professional criminal, and in some contexts the term more specifically suggests that the gun moll handles a
firearm .When the term came into usage in the first decade of the 20th century, [ [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gun%20moll gun moll - Definitions from Dictionary.com ] ] "gun" derived from the Yiddish word meaning "thief," variously transliterated into English as ganef, gonif, goniff, or ganof, [ [http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ganef ganef - Definitions from Dictionary.com ] ] and not from "gun" in the sense of a firearm.
"Moll" derives from "Molly", a diminutive of "Mary", used as a euphemism for "whore" or "prostitute".
In the U.S., the term has mostly been applied a woman associating with an American
gangster of the1920s and '30s, and in most cases remarkable only because of his notoriety. Extended use of the term without awareness of the Yiddish root, however, has invited interpretations of "gun" as suggesting more than simply criminal associations.Bonnie Parker andBlanche Barrow were gun molls in this stronger sense, and especially notable examples in general, because of their accompanying the rest of theBarrow Gang to the planned locations of violent crimes, and in Parker's case, apparently directly assisting at least to the extent of loading guns in the midst of shootouts.Prominent Gun molls
*
Beulah Baird - Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd
*DaLonne "Dee David" Chisam (later Cooper)(b. 30 Apr 1923, d. 12 Nov 1976) -Mickey Cohen [Long Beach Independent - Long Beach, California - Thursday, July 21, 1949 - P. 32] and Fred (Alfred) Sica (b. 11 Sep 1915, d. 1987) [Long Beach Press-Telegram - Long Beach, California - Friday, November 02, 1956 - P. 23 (This article points out that DaLonne had actually lived with Fred Sica for a number of years.)]
*Jean Delaney - Tommy Carroll
*Evelyn "Billie" Frechette -John Dillinger
*Mary Kinder -Harry Pierpont
*Kathryn Thorne - George "Machine Gun" Kelly Barnes
*Opal "Mack Truck" Long - Russell Clark
*Bonnie Parker -Clyde Barrow
*Helen Wawzynak - Lester Joseph Gillis, aka George "Baby Face" Nelson
*Virginia Hill -Bugsy Siegel
*Judith Exner -Sam Giancana Related terms
*Italian and
Italian American gangsters and mafioso often refer to their mistress as a comare, often Americanized to goomah, goomar, or gomatta.
*gunman - a man who uses a gun to commit a crime
*gunsel - a derogatory name for a criminal carrying a gun; from the Yiddish "gendzel", "little goose", thought to be a slang term for a neophyte criminal. [Jackson, Louis E. "A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang with Some Examples of Common Usages". Portland, Oregon: Modern Printing Co. (1914), p. 40: "GUNSHEL, noun. ... A boy; a youth; a neophyte of trampdom."]
*moll - common term for whore or prostitute, and also the nickname of a 17th century criminalMoll Cutpurse In popular culture
*"The Lady in Red" (1979)
*"Ruby" (1977)
*"Jigsaw" (1949)
*"Gang Smashers " (1938)
*"The Cocaine Fiends " (1935)
*"Outside the Law" (1920)ee also
*
Femme fatale References
External links
* [http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_283.html Don’t Call Us Molls: Women of the John Dillinger Gang] by Ellen Poulson
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
