gut

(gŭt)

a. The digestive tract or a portion thereof, especially the intestine or stomach.

b. The embryonic digestive tube, consisting of the foregut, the midgut, and the hindgut.

c. guts The bowels or entrails; viscera.

2. Slang

a. Innermost emotional or visceral response: She felt in her gut that he was guilty.

b. guts The inner or essential parts: "The best part of a good car ... is its guts" (Leigh Allison Wilson).

3. guts Slang Courage; fortitude: It takes guts to be a rock climber.

4. Slang A gut course.

a. Thin, tough cord made from the intestines of animals, usually sheep, used as strings for musical instruments or as surgical sutures.

b. Fibrous material taken from the silk gland of a silkworm before it spins a cocoon, used for fishing tackle.

6. A narrow passage or channel.

7. Sports

a. The central, lengthwise portion of a playing area.

b. The players occupying this space: The fullback ran up the gut of the defense.

tr.v. gut·ted, gut·ting, guts

1. To remove the intestines or entrails of; eviscerate.

2. To extract essential or major parts of: gut a manuscript.

3. To destroy the interior of: Fire gutted the house.

4. To reduce or destroy the effectiveness of: A stipulation added at the last minute gutted the ordinance.

adj. Slang

Arousing or involving basic emotions; visceral: "Conservationism is a gut issue in the West" (Saturday Review).

Idiom:

gut it out Slang

To show pluck and perseverance in the face of opposition or adversity.

[From Middle English guttes, entrails, from Old English guttas; see gheu- in Indo-European roots.]

gut′ty adj.

GUT

abbr.

grand unified theory

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

guts - fortitude and determination; "he didn't have the guts to try it"

moxie, backbone, grit, gumption, sand

fortitude - strength of mind that enables one to endure adversity with courage

colloquialism - a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech

Translations

أحْشاءشَجاعَه

odvahavnitřnosti

gåpåmodindvoldemod

Eingeweide Schneid Frechheit Mumm

agallas coraje huevos agalla

entrailles nerf tripes cran culot

אומץביציםמעיים

bélbelsõségekmersz

hugrekkiinnyfli

fegato interiora viscere budello

ballen ingewanden kloten lef

tarmer

estômago fígado

кишки сила воли храбрость

pogum

cesaretiç organlaryüreklilik

内脏勇气

gut

(gat) noun

1. the tube in the lower part of the body through which food passes.

2. a strong thread made from the gut of an animal, used for violin strings etc.

verb – past tense, past participle ˈgutted –

1. to take the guts out of. Her job was to gut fish.

2. to destroy completely, except for the outer frame. The fire gutted the house.

guts noun plural

1. the gut, liver, kidneys etc.

2. courage. He's got a lot of guts.

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

"Smash 'im, Jimmie, kick deh damn guts out of 'im," yelled Pete, the lad with the chronic sneer, in tones of delight.

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And I shall know that I must die, at sea most likely, cease crawling of myself to be all a-crawl with the corruption of the sea; to be fed upon, to be carrion, to yield up all the strength and movement of my muscles that it may become strength and movement in fin and scale and the guts of fishes.

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They feed upon raw cow's flesh; when they kill a cow, they keep the blood to rub their bodies with, and wear the guts about their necks for ornaments, which they afterwards give to their wives.

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And now a matter of some difficulty arose; and this was how his lordship himself should be conveyed; for though in stage-coaches, where passengers are properly considered as so much luggage, the ingenious coachman stows half a dozen with perfect ease into the place of four; for well he contrives that the fat hostess, or well-fed alderman, may take up no more room than the slim miss, or taper master; it being the nature of guts, when well squeezed, to give way, and to lie in a narrow compass; yet in these vehicles, which are called, for distinction's sake, gentlemen's coaches, though they are often larger than the others, this method of packing is never attempted.

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He had a large pair of bellows, with a long slender muzzle of ivory: this he conveyed eight inches up the anus, and drawing in the wind, he affirmed he could make the guts as lank as a dried bladder.

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To one of them, a brand-new, well-bound one, they gave such a stroke that they knocked the guts out of it and scattered the leaves about.

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"The 'movers.' They lease, clean out and gut a place in several years, and then move on.

I love the soil, yet tomorrow, things being as they are and if I were poor, I'd gut five hundred acres in order to buy twenty-five for myself.

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He strung his bow with tendons from the buck upon which he had dined his first evening upon the new shore, and though he would have preferred the gut of Sheeta for the purpose, he was content to wait until opportunity permitted him to kill one of the great cats.

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The instruments were of skeel, the string of gut, and were shaped to fit the left forearm of the dancer, to which it was strapped.

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During our flight from Phutra I had restrung my bow with a piece of heavy gut taken from a huge tiger which Ghak and I had worried and finally dispatched with arrows, spear, and sword.

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There were men to cut it, and men to split it, and men to gut it and scrape it clean inside.

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