gut

plural guts

1. countableuncountableThe alimentary canal, especially the intestine.

   Synonyms: alimentary canal, digestive system, guts, intestine, tharm, innards

2. countableinformaluncountableThe abdomen of a person, especially one that is enlarged.

   You've developed quite a beer gut since I last met you.

   Synonyms: abdomen, beer belly, beer gut, belly, paunch, potbelly, stomach, tum

3. uncountableThe intestines of an animal used to make strings of a tennis racket or violin, etc.

   Synonyms: catgut

4. countableuncountableA person's emotional, visceral self.

   I have a funny feeling in my gut.

5. countableinformaluncountableA class that is not demanding or challenging.

   You should take Intro Astronomy: it's a gut.

6. countableespeciallyuncountableA narrow channel, passage, or stream of water. (Compare gote.)

   the Gut of Canso

   5 more examples

   There is a tide in the affairs of men, / Which, taken any way you please, is bad, / And strands them in forsaken guts and creeks / No decent soul would think of visiting.

   1887 March 21, Rudyard Kipling, “Kidnapped”, in Plain Tales from the Hills, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co.; London: W. Thacker & Co., published 1888, →OCLC, page 111

   FRAE Team-Gut to Whitley, wi' coals black and brown, For the Amphitrite loaded, the keel had gyen down;

   1840 [original 1824?], Gilchrist, The Tyneside Songster, page 15

   Where Coonie gut by tha shord turns roun', / Close by tha stickle-path us foun',

   1867, William Frederick Rock, Jim and Nell: A Dramatic Poem in the Dialect of North Devon, page 35

   […] it was not until shouts of "Hollo, Brown! how did you get there? Why, you said you were not going down to-day," greeted them just above the Gut, that they were aware of the presence of the freshmen's four-oar.

   1870 [original 1861?], Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, page 17

   […] at a round swing-trot kept pace on the shore with the swing of the Balliol eight, as she shot through the narrows of "the gut" as straight as an arrow, […]

   1882, Herman Charles Merivale, Faucit of Balliol: A Story in Two Parts, volume 1, page 2

7. countableuncountableThe sac of silk taken from a silkworm when ready to spin its cocoon, for the purpose of drawing it out into a thread. When dry, it is exceedingly strong, and is used as the snood of a fishing line.

present singular third person guts · participle present gutting · participle past gutted · past gutted

1. transitiveTo eviscerate.

   Holonym: field dress

   2 more examples

   The fisherman guts the fish before cooking them.

   The lioness gutted her prey.

2. broadlytransitiveliteral or figurativeTo remove or destroy the vital parts of.

   Fire gutted the building.

   3 more examples

   Congress gutted the welfare bill.

   The fuselage came to rest 522 feet from the initial impact point on a magnetic heading of 175 degrees. The complete fuselage from the nose section, including the nose gear section, aft to the empennage, was extensively burned and gutted by fire. The cabin area, which consisted of only the lower fuselage, was melted and the metal was visible in the ice.

   1982 July 20, National Transportation Safety Board, “1.12 Wreckage and Impact Information”, in Aircraft Accident Report: Pilgrim Airlines Flight 458, deHavilland DHC-6-100, N127PM, Near Providence, Rhode Island, February 21, 1982, archived from the original on 03 Apr 2024, page 4

   He gutted the kitchen, replacing an outdated scheme with a sexy mélange of mirror, lacquer, Rouge Griotte marble, and African mahogany.

   2026 May 28, Sam Cochran, “Show of Hands”, in Architectural Digest, volume 83, number 4, page 69

3. figurativelytransitiveTo dishearten; to crush the spirits of.

   They were gutted by the court's decision.

   2 more examples

   It's no worse than what he said in Miami, but hearing him repeat it, attribute it to my father...it guts me. “That's who your family is. Who you are. Stangers—Stanleys, whatever your fucking names are,” he spits.

   2016 October 4, Danielle Pearl, In Ruins, Forever, →ISBN

   What's bothering me is that I'd felt more for him than I realized, and it guts me that it's over before it can really get going.

   2017 October 4, Angela Quarles, Earning It: A Romantic Comedy, Unsealed Room Press, →ISBN

1. not comparableMade of gut.

   a violin with gut strings

2. not comparableInstinctive.

   gut reaction

plural Guts

1. A surname from German.

plural GUTs

1. abbreviationinitialismnatural sciencesInitialism of grand unification theory or grand unified theory.