have the guts

Idioms

Possess the courage, as in Does he have the guts to dive off the high board? This expression replaces the earlier and now obsolete sense of stomach as “courage,” a usage from the early 1500s. [Slang; late 1800s]

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:

have the guts

Will this crop of European leaders have the guts?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 17, 2026

Fuzz guitars thrust the song forwards, as 32-year-old Sampa, full name Sampa Tembo, defiantly raps: "They don't have the guts to match my prowess."

From BBC ● Dec. 19, 2025

Not even the stylist teams at her beck and call have the guts to be brutally honest about her choices.

From Salon ● May 2, 2024

“I always wanted to have the guts to do it, but I never did,” the country/Americana star says.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 3, 2024

And I definitely didn't have the guts to walk out in the middle of the day.

From "Ghost" by Jason Reynolds

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023