gut
/ɡʌt
/noun
1 (also guts) The stomach or belly: the terrible pain in his gut...
- If the President lined up every world leader in a line and systematically punched each of them in the gut in the name of unilateral diplomacy, would you still vote for him?
- All of this has got to cause a churning in his gut.
- Sims' basslines were jabs to the gut - physical in the extreme.
Synonyms
stomach, belly, abdomen;
intestines, bowels, colon
informal tummy, tum, insides, innards, breadbasket
Australian informal bingy
Medicine solar plexus
1.1 Medicine & Biology The lower alimentary canal or a part of this; the intestine: microbes which naturally live in the human gut...
- Different strains infect different tissues and organs - lungs, guts, kidneys, livers, brains or reproductive systems.
- A stoma is an artificial opening to or from the intestine (which is also known as the gut or bowel) on the abdominal wall usually created by a surgeon.
- In some the problem has a behavioural basis, whereas in others there may be subtle neuromuscular abnormalities of the gut.
1.2 (guts) Entrails that have been removed or exposed in violence or by a butcher.Imagine trying to remove the guts of a cow or chicken once every minute....
- My father cut the shark open, removed the guts, cut the head off, and then preserved him in ice.
- Cut off the heads, remove the clear coloured backbone and remove the guts to leave a large opening at the head end.
Synonyms
intestines, entrails;
vital organs, bodily organs, vital parts, viscera;
offal
informal insides, innards
British archaic numbles
1.3 informal A fat stomach.Fish-belly white thighs and guts are not attractive....
- My face was splotchy and I had this huge gut, which I've never had in my life.
- So if you're thinking about lazing around, remember that the result may be a sour attitude as well as a flabby gut.
1.4 (guts) The inner parts or essence of something: the guts of a modern computer...
- They look like the inner guts of extraterrestrial watches.
- There are ten cables spilling out of a socket in the kitchen, white tubes that remind me of the guts of the robot in the Alien movie.
- Somebody is selling a music player whose guts have been swapped with the innards of what looks like a $2 miniature toy electric guitar.
1.5 (guts) [with modifier] Used to form names attributing negative characteristics to people: what’s the matter with you, misery guts? greedy guts...
- With the exception of a certain Glaswegian misery guts, just about everybody in English football would like to see him make it.
- Do you live with or work with or are you married to a real misery guts?
- Plus, he is an absolute misery guts with no apparent sense of humour.
2 [often as modifier] informal Used in reference to a feeling or reaction based on an instinctive emotional response rather than considered thought: I had a gut feeling that something was wrong trusting his gut instinct, he went ahead and made the call I could feel it in my guts - he was out there, watching me...
- I don't frankly like to base myself on instincts or gut feelings about this.
- We commonly think of the intuition as a strong feeling, instinct, or gut reaction.
- But you should develop the capacity to reflect on gut feelings rather than acting on them impulsively.
Synonyms
instinctive, instinctual, intuitive, impulsive, natural, basic, emotional, heartfelt, deep-seated;
knee-jerk, automatic, involuntary, spontaneous, unthinking
3 (guts) informal Personal courage and determination; toughness of character: he didn’t have the guts to tell the truth...
- We needed lots of guts, determination and character to win the game - and we need to do that for the rest of the season.
- He is proof that there are many young people with principles, guts and determination and it's time we started respecting them for it.
- Yarnbury moved out of the bottom three as sheer guts, determination and spirit saw them through.
Synonyms
courage, courageousness, bravery, valour, backbone, nerve, fortitude, pluck, pluckiness, mettle, mettlesomeness, spirit, boldness, audacity, daring, fearlessness, hardiness, toughness, forcefulness, determination, resolve, resolution
informal grit, gumption, spunk, gutsiness, gameness
British informal bottle, ballsiness
North American informal moxie, cojones, sand
vulgar slang balls
4 [mass noun] Fibre made from the intestines of animals, used especially for violin or racket strings or for surgical use.The instrument itself was made of wood, with gut or horsehair strings....
- It's like a pear-shaped instrument, the body is covered in skin, and the strings are made of gut.
- Tchaikovsky's strings were gut rather than metal and were played with little vibrato.
5A narrow passage or strait.McHale was trudging through the gut ahead of me at the side of the boat when he suddenly vanished at a spot marked only by the float of his hat....
- Most bumps in the Rowing-On divisions took place below the gut, leaving spectators not much more to observe than the bizarre attire of various crews.
- Various tours are available by speed boats that take you for the most spectacular views, even up the gut to laugh in the face of El Diablo.
verb (guts, gutting, gutted) [with object]
1Remove the intestines and other internal organs from (a fish or other animal) before cooking it.After getting a few fish each, they swam in the pond before they went back to the beach to clean and gut the fish and prepare them for dinner....
- Let the fishmonger scale, clean and gut the fish (I leave the head on).
- Those who have gutted a deer or skinned a rabbit might have some idea of the extreme nature of what an edged weapon can do to flesh.
Synonyms
disembowel, eviscerate, draw, dress, clean, remove the innards from, remove the guts from
rare embowel, disbowel, exenterate, gralloch, paunch
1.1Remove or destroy completely the internal parts of (a building or other structure): the fire gutted most of the factory...
- Forensic experts are still sifting through debris from the Newbridge Courthouse fire, which gutted the historic building last Thursday morning.
- By this time, Mrs Hatley's old kitchen had been gutted ready for the replacement.
- In the old city, many homes had been gutted and destroyed.
Synonyms
devastate, destroy, demolish, wipe out, lay waste to, ravage, consume, ruin, leave in ruins, wreck, raze, level, flatten
literary despoil
2British informal Cause (someone) to feel extremely upset or disappointed: it guts me to think about what my mother and brother missed out on (as adjective gutting) she described the ruling as absolutely gutting...
- I wouldn't say it broke my heart, but it absolutely gutted me.
- It gutted me as a member of the goalkeepers' union when Barthez had that bad spell of three or four games but he's come back with some unbelievable saves.
- The Elephant man just had me in floods of tears with the sad nobility of Merrick's death, whereas Menace's uber-bleak ending gutted me so much that I ended up choking back tears.
Phrases
bust a gut
—— one's guts out
hate someone's guts
have someone's guts for garters
(as) rough as guts
Origin
Old English guttas (plural), probably related to gēotan 'pour'.
Gut is probably related to Old English gēotan ‘to pour’. Guts was used commonly for ‘stomach, bowels’; it became more informal and also came to mean ‘force of character, courage’ from the late 19th century. The notion of ‘basic’ as in gut reaction arose in the 1960s.