to collapse from the strain of making a supreme effort: She was determined to make straight A's or bust.
Cards.
Draw Poker.to fail to make a flush or straight by one card.
Blackjack.to draw cards exceeding the count of 21.
verb (used with object)
Informal.
to burst.
to bankrupt; ruin financially.
to demote, especially in military rank or grade: He was busted from sergeant to private three times.
to tame; break: to bust a bronco.
Slang.
to place under arrest: The gang was busted and put away on narcotics charges.
to subject to a police raid: The bar has been busted three times for selling drinks to minors.
Informal.
to hit.
to break; fracture: She fell and busted her arm.
noun
a failure.
Informal. a hit; sock; punch: He got a bust in the nose before he could put up his hands.
a sudden decline in the economic conditions of a country, marked by an extreme drop in stock-market prices, business activity, and employment; depression.
Slang.
an arrest.
a police raid.
Informal. a drinking spree; binge.
Cards.
a very weak hand.
Bridge.a hand lacking the potential to take a single trick.
adjective
Informal. bankrupt; broke.
Verb Phrases
bust up, Informal.
to break up; separate: Sam and his wife busted up a year ago.
to damage or destroy: Soldiers got in a fight and busted up the bar.
Idioms
bust ass, Slang: Vulgar. to fight with the fists; strike or thrash another.
bust on, Slang.
to attack physically; beat up.
to criticize or reprimand harshly.
to make fun of or laugh at; mock.
to inform on.
bust one's ass, Slang: Vulgar. to make an extreme effort; exert oneself.
Origin of bust
2
1755–65; variant of burst, by loss of r before s, as in ass2, bass2, passel, etc.
Can be confusedburstburst (see usage note at the current entry)
Usage note
Historically bust is derived from a dialect pronunciation of burst and is related to it much as cuss is related to curse.Bust is both a noun and a verb and has a wide range of meanings for both uses. Many are slang or informal. A few, as “a decline in economic conditions, depression,” are standard.
"broken, ruined," 1837, past participle adjective from bust (v.).
bust
n.1
1690s, "sculpture of upper torso and head," from French buste (16c.), from Italian busto "upper body," from Latin bustum "funeral monument, tomb," originally "funeral pyre, place where corpses are burned," perhaps shortened from ambustum, neuter of ambustus "burned around," past participle of amburere "burn around, scorch," from ambi- "around" + urere "to burn." Or perhaps from Old Latin boro, the early form of classical Latin uro "to burn." Sense development in Italian is probably from Etruscan custom of keeping dead person's ashes in an urn shaped like the person when alive. Meaning "bosom" is by 1884.
bust
n.2
variant of burst (n.), 1764, American English. For loss of -r-, cf. ass (n.2). Originally "frolic, spree;" sense of "sudden failure" is from 1842. Meaning "police raid or arrest" is from 1938. Phrase ______ or bust as an emphatic expression attested by 1851 in British depictions of Western U.S. dialect. Probably from earlier expression bust (one's) boiler, by late 1840s, a reference to steamboat boilers exploding when driven too hard.
bust
v.
"to burst," 1806, variant of burst (v.); for loss of -r-, cf. ass (n.2). Meaning "go bankrupt" is from 1834. Meaning "break into" is from 1859. The slang meaning "demote" (especially in a military sense) is from 1918; that of "place under arrest" is from 1953 (earlier "to raid" from Prohibition). In card games, "to go over a score of 21," from 1939. Related: Busted; busting.
