Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The digestive tract or a portion thereof, especially the intestine or stomach.
  • noun The embryonic digestive tube, consisting of the foregut, the midgut, and the hindgut.
  • noun The bowels or entrails; viscera.
  • noun Innermost emotional or visceral response.
  • noun The inner or essential parts.
  • noun Slang Courage; fortitude.
  • noun Slang A gut course.
  • noun Thin, tough cord made from the intestines of animals, usually sheep, used as strings for musical instruments or as surgical sutures.
  • noun Fibrous material taken from the silk gland of a silkworm before it spins a cocoon, used for fishing tackle.
  • noun A narrow passage or channel.
  • noun The central, lengthwise portion of a playing area.
  • noun The players occupying this space.
  • transitive verb To remove the intestines or entrails of; eviscerate.
  • transitive verb To extract essential or major parts of.
  • transitive verb To destroy the interior of.
  • transitive verb To reduce or destroy the effectiveness of.
  • adjective Arousing or involving basic emotions; visceral.
  • idiom (gut it out) To show pluck and perseverance in the face of opposition or adversity.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To take out the entrails of; disembowel; eviscerate.
  • To plunder of contents; destroy or strip the interior of: as, the burglars gutted the store.
  • noun Either the whole or a distinct division of that part of the alimentary canal of an animal which extends from the stomach to the anus; the intestinal canal, or any part of it; an intestine: as, the large gut; the small gut; the blind gut, or cæcum.
  • noun In the plural, the bowels; the whole mass formed by the natural convolutions of the intestinal canal in the abdomen.
  • noun In biology, the whole intestinal tube, alimentary canal, or digestive tract; the enteric tube, from mouth to anus. See enteron, stomodæum, proctodæum.
  • noun The whole digestive system; the viscera; the entrails in general: commonly in the plural.
  • noun The substance forming the case of the intestine; intestinal tissue or fiber: as, sheep's gut; calf-gut.
  • noun A preparation of the intestines of an animal used for various purposes, as for the strings of a violin, or, in angling, for the snood or leader to which the hook or lure is attached.
  • noun A narrow passage; particularly, a narrow channel of water; a strait; a long narrow inlet.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A narrow passage of water.
  • noun An intenstine; a bowel; the whole alimentary canal; the enteron; (pl.) bowels; entrails.
  • noun One of the prepared entrails of an animal, esp. of a sheep, used for various purposes. See Catgut.
  • noun The sac of silk taken from a silkworm (when ready to spin its cocoon), for the purpose of drawing it out into a thread. This, when dry, is exceedingly strong, and is used as the snood of a fish line.
  • noun See CÆcum, n. (b).
  • transitive verb To take out the bowels from; to eviscerate.
  • transitive verb To plunder of contents; to destroy or remove the interior or contents of.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The alimentary canal, especially the intestine.
  • noun informal The abdomen of a person, especially one that is enlarged
  • noun uncountable The intestines of an animal used to make strings of a tennis racket or violin, etc.
  • noun A person's emotional, visceral self.
  • noun this sense?) Any small internal organs.
  • noun in the plural The essential, core parts.
  • noun in the plural Ability and will to face up to adversity or unpleasantness.
  • noun informal A gut course
  • verb transitive To eviscerate.
  • verb transitive To remove or destroy the most important parts of.
  • adjective Made of gut, e.g., a violin with gut strings
  • adjective Instinctive, e.g., a gut reaction

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Middle English guttes, entrails, from Old English guttas; see gheu- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English gut, gutte, gotte, from Old English gutt (usually in plural guttas ("guts, entrails")), from Proto-Germanic *gut-, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeud- (“to pour”). Related to English gote ("drain"), Old English ġēotan ("to pour"). More at gote, yote.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word gut.

Examples

  • Even the people defending voting for the Democrats on this turn of the wheel defend it as 'pragmatic', as though choosing to be stabbed in the gut is the pragmatic alternative to choosing to be shot in the head.

    Lee Stranahan: Why The Democrats Deserve To Lose Lee Stranahan 2010

  • Even the people defending voting for the Democrats on this turn of the wheel defend it as 'pragmatic', as though choosing to be stabbed in the gut is the pragmatic alternative to choosing to be shot in the head.

    Lee Stranahan: Why The Democrats Deserve To Lose Lee Stranahan 2010

  • Even the people defending voting for the Democrats on this turn of the wheel defend it as 'pragmatic', as though choosing to be stabbed in the gut is the pragmatic alternative to choosing to be shot in the head.

    Lee Stranahan: Why The Democrats Deserve To Lose Lee Stranahan 2010

  • Even the people defending voting for the Democrats on this turn of the wheel defend it as 'pragmatic', as though choosing to be stabbed in the gut is the pragmatic alternative to choosing to be shot in the head.

    Lee Stranahan: Why The Democrats Deserve To Lose Lee Stranahan 2010

  • June 22nd, 2009 3: 51 pm ET this gut is a liberal clown and acted like a republican and cheated on his wife but he is not responsible because he is a hypocrite democrat.

    Villaraigosa to make announcement on Situation Room 2009

  • Q: A writer has crafted a book he believes in his gut is a breakout novel: it has it all, including a unique setting, authentic characters, a captivating plot that unfolds in surprising ways, scads of conflict and more.

    Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » INTERVIEW: Donald Maass, Part 1 2007

  • Chertoff declared he has what he called a gut feeling that this country faces a heightened risk of a terrorist attack.

    CNN Transcript Jul 11, 2007 2007

  • The throaty cheer that emanates from the gut is the soundtrack.

    USATODAY.com - Holding the line 2003

  • WATSON: We're going to see more what I call gut punches, meaning that the ads are going to get sharper.

    CNN Transcript Oct 18, 2004 2004

  • But because the threat remains at the level of a vague feeling—what I call a gut reaction—it can ruin everything.

    Why Men Won’t Commit George Weinberg 2002

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.