gut

[[t]gʌ̱t[/t]]

guts, gutting, gutted

1) N-PLURAL A person's or animal's guts are all the organs inside them.

By the time they finish, the crewmen are standing ankle-deep in fish guts.

2) VERB When someone guts a dead animal or fish, they prepare it for cooking by removing all the organs from inside it.

[V n] It is not always necessary to gut the fish prior to freezing.

3) N-SING: the/poss N The gut is the tube inside the body of a person or animal through which food passes while it is being digested.

4) N-UNCOUNT Guts is the will and courage to do something which is difficult or unpleasant, or which might have unpleasant results. [INFORMAL]

The new Chancellor has the guts to push through unpopular tax increases...

It takes more guts than I've usually got to go and see him.

5) N-SING: usu N n A gut feeling is based on instinct or emotion rather than reason.

Let's have your gut reaction to the facts as we know them.

6) N-COUNT: usu sing You can refer to someone's stomach as their gut, especially when it is very large and sticks out. [INFORMAL]

→ See also beer gut

His gut sagged out over his belt.

7) N-PLURAL: N of n The guts of something, for example a subject or a machine, are the key elements of it, which make it work. [INFORMAL]

She has a reputation for getting at the guts of a subject and never pulling her punches...

The guts of the reactor have to be hauled out of the pressure vessel.

8) VERB To gut a building means to destroy the inside of it so that only its outside walls remain.

[V n] Over the weekend, a firebomb gutted a building where 60 people lived...

[V-ed] A factory stands gutted and deserted.

9) N-UNCOUNT Gut is string made from part of the stomach of an animal. Traditionally, it is used to make the strings of sports rackets or musical instruments such as violins.

10) → See also gutted

11) PHRASE: V inflects To bust a gut means to work very hard trying to achieve something. [INFORMAL]

You can bust a gut sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, but if your product is lousy, you've wasted your time.

12) PHRASE: V inflects (emphasis) If you hate someone's guts, you dislike them very much indeed. [INFORMAL]

We hate each other's guts.

13) PHRASE: V inflects If someone spills their guts, they tell you everything about something secret or private. [INFORMAL]

People call in and just spill their guts about whatever's bothering them on the job or in a relationship.

14) PHRASE: V inflects (emphasis) If you say that you are working your guts out or slogging your guts out, you are emphasizing that you are working as hard as you can. [INFORMAL]

Most have worked their guts out and made sacrifices.