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:
Prices recently dipped to near all-time lows, a gut punch for the many employees who get much of their pay in shares.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
Caroline trusts her gut, while I’m more deliberate, analytical and systematic.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
At Lumen, leaders are assigned to a peer, and the two must be open with each other and act as a gut check.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
One possibility that deserves closer examination is disruption of the gut microbiome, the community of microorganisms living in the digestive system.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026
Sandy forces a laugh, but it makes my gut twist, there’s so much pain in it.
From "King and the Dragonflies" by Kacen Callender
“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
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
This transition from GUT to electroweak is an example of spontaneous symmetry breaking, in which conditions spontaneously evolved to a point where the forces were no longer unified, breaking that symmetry.
From Textbooks ● Aug. 12, 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
"I'll move on and fight somebody else but just know you never had the guts to fight Tyson Fury, ever, you little coward," Fury added.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
She handed me a bowl into which the pig’s guts spilled like syrup, quivering pink, blue, and yellow, warm and musky, alive, hard to imagine as solid, piquant, brown sausages.
From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago
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
He sat and ran his hand around in the works of the gutted machines and in the second one it closed over a cold metal cylinder.
From "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
"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
“When you actually look at the totality of what’s being put forward, we are seeing a total gutting of a resource base,” she told NOTUS.
From Slate ● May 2, 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
“After you gut a few thousand chickens,” Galen said dryly, “you’ll either get really good at it, or you’ll stop gutting chickens.”
From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
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