gut-wrenching
Americanadjective
adjective
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.
It’s not “Up”-level gut-wrenching, but the scenes establishing the heartbroken boy’s lingering trauma hit pretty hard.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 23, 2026
That hasn’t happened since World War II. It took a famously gut-wrenching recession to wring out the last bout of high inflation from the economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
From MarketWatch • Feb. 14, 2026
You hear the gut-wrenching thud as your car hits an unavoidable pothole.
From BBC • Feb. 12, 2026
Amy Madigan’s gut-wrenching turn in “Weapons” as the despicable, bewigged witch Aunt Gladys became impossible for the Academy to ignore, largely thanks to the amount of hype surrounding Madigan’s character.
From Salon • Jan. 23, 2026
It had been five years since Scruggs had served as a mortarman in Vietnam, but he felt an immediate, gut-wrenching fear for the South Vietnamese soldiers he’d fought alongside.
From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge
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.
