gut
noun
the alimentary canal, especially between the pylorus and the anus, or some portion of it.
gut
1 American
[guht]
/ gʌt /
noun
-
guts
plural
-
the alimentary canal, especially between the pylorus and the anus, or some portion of it.
-
guts,
-
bowels or entrails.
-
Informal. courage and fortitude; nerve; determination; stamina.
Climbing that cliff takes a lot of guts.
-
the inner working parts of a machine or device.
The mechanic had the guts of the refrigerator laid out on the kitchen floor.
-
-
the belly; stomach; abdomen.
-
the substance forming the case of the intestine; intestinal tissue or fiber.
sheep's gut.
-
a preparation of the intestines of an animal, used for various purposes, as for violin strings, tennis rackets, or fishing lines.
-
the silken substance taken from a silkworm killed when about to spin its cocoon, used in making snells for fishhooks.
-
a narrow passage, as a channel of water or a defile between hills.
-
Slang. Also gut course snap course.
verb (used with object)
-
guts,
present (3rd person singular)
-
gutted,
past participle, past
-
gutting
present participle
-
to take out the guts or entrails of; disembowel.
-
to destroy the interior of.
Fire gutted the building.
-
to plunder (a house, city, etc.) of contents.
Invaders gutted the village.
-
to remove the vital or essential parts from.
The prisoner's letters were gutted by heavy censorship.
adjective
idioms
GUT
2
American
Physics.
gut
1
British
/ ɡʌt /
noun
-
-
the lower part of the alimentary canal; intestine
-
the entire alimentary canal
-
-
(often plural) the bowels or entrails, esp of an animal
-
slang the belly; paunch
-
See catgut
-
a silky fibrous substance extracted from silkworms, used in the manufacture of fishing tackle
-
a narrow channel or passage
-
informal (plural) courage, willpower, or daring; forcefulness
-
informal (plural) the essential part
the guts of a problem
-
informal to make an intense effort
-
informal to be extremely angry with someone
-
informal to dislike a person very strongly
-
informal to work very hard
verb
-
to remove the entrails from (fish, etc)
-
(esp of fire) to destroy the inside of (a building)
-
to plunder; despoil
the raiders gutted the city
-
to take out the central points of (an article), esp in summary form
adjective
GUT
2
British
/ ɡʌt /
acronym
gut
1
Scientific
/ gŭt /
-
The intestine of a vertebrate animal.
-
The alimentary canal of an invertebrate animal.
-
The tube in a vertebrate embryo that later develops into the alimentary canal, lungs, and liver.
GUT
2
Scientific
gut
More Idioms
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
gutsimple
-
gutssimple
-
have guttedperfect
-
has guttedperfect
-
am guttingprogressive
-
are guttingprogressive
-
is guttingprogressive
-
have been guttingperfect progressive
-
has been guttingperfect progressive
Past
-
guttedsimple
-
had guttedperfect
-
was guttingprogressive
-
were guttingprogressive
-
had been guttingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gut
First recorded before 1000; Middle English gut, guttes (plural), Old English guttas (plural), akin to gēotan “to pour”
Explanation
Your gut is part of your digestive system — it's where food goes after you eat it, to get broken down into nutrients and waste. The expression to "go with your gut" means to follow your instincts, how you feel in your belly. Your gut is quite literally your intestines, although the word is frequently used for any part of your digestive system, especially your stomach. Eating too much ice cream can give you an ache in your gut. When gut is a verb, it means to clean the internal organs out of a fish or other animal you intend to eat, or to completely empty a building. Colloquially, if you have guts, you're very brave.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"You're altering the microbiome of your gut, and perhaps creating antibiotic resistant bacteria in your body that will fight off the drug therapy the next time you really need it," he said.
From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026
Different foods affect your metabolism and gut microbiome differently.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
The intense g-force hits in the first second of the race, as the cars go from stationary to 100mph, with a second gut punch following as the clutch fully engages about half-way through.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
“I deeply wanted to gut it out for one more year; to take the field with my brothers for one last season,” Johnson said in a statement posted Tuesday on social media.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
My gut twisted at the sound of impact.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
“You manage a baseball game with your EYES, HEART, & GUT as well as your BRAIN,” Blevins posted.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 27, 2020
If the GUT approach is right, the average decay time in question is far longer than the age of the universe itself.
From Economist ● Jan. 11, 2018
In GUT models, the forces that we are familiar with here on Earth, including gravity and electromagnetism, behaved very differently in the extreme conditions of the early universe than they do today.
From Textbooks ● Oct. 13, 2016
The model of the car was unknown, according to the police call, but its plates included the letters and numbers GUT 18053.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 15, 2015
In Austrian spy-letters, now and afterwards, they are described to us as "GUT PREUSSISCH;" "strong for Prussia, the most of them, even in Dresden itself."
From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 17 by Thomas Carlyle
"I didn't write this novel with my head, but with my guts and my heart," he told AFP recently.
From Barron's ● Sep. 25, 2026
Conversations like this reminded me that people with little power are often attuned to the differences between what they hear from authorities and what they know in their guts.
From Salon ● Sep. 19, 2026
In the mouse experiment, none of the human Roseburia species permanently colonized the animals' guts.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026
The views were spectacular, if you had the guts to swerve your eyes from the white-knuckling road.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2026
They don’t usually come up to a ship and announce their presence, not unless you throw fish blood and guts in the water first...
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
Garmin was best known for car GPS units, a business that smartphones gutted.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
Acaster, meanwhile, reflected: "I'm gutted to not be a faithful anymore, I don't like lying. But if I don't join them, they'll kill me."
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
So when the strip went missing he was gutted.
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
Like that gutted TV cabinet, his sad eyes are a window into the sensitive boy inside the grown man.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
In no time, I've cleaned and gutted the animal, leaving the head, feet, tail, skin, and innards, under a pile of leaves.
From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
"It is a bit gutting, because I was so excited until they announced the new rules coming in, it's hard to believe how big of a change it is going to be," he added.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
Damon’s Odysseus is numbed by the massacre of Troy’s civilians; Fiennes’ hates himself for leading the best men of Ithaca to their death, gutting his own community in the heedless destruction of another.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
In all, Alico began gutting 53,000 citrus acres at the end of the 2025 harvest: 35 percent of Florida’s citrus production, condemned in one press release.
From Slate ● Apr. 20, 2026
He once attacked a federal appeals court for gutting one of his cases, violating taboos against getting personal and criticizing judges.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 7, 2026
If it weren’t for gutting fish on Sookie’s boat, I probably would have been more grossed out.
From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
