gut

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points: 4
Words With Friends: 6
Letters: 3

Pronunciation

/ɡʌt/

See all 2 pronunciations

/ɡʌt/ · /ɡʊt/

Definition of gut

14 senses · 4 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

(countable, uncountable)The alimentary canal, especially the intestine.

See all 14 definitions

noun

(countable, uncountable)The alimentary canal, especially the intestine.
(countable, informal, uncountable)The abdomen of a person, especially one that is enlarged.

“You've developed quite a beer gut since I last met you.”
(uncountable)The intestines of an animal used to make strings of a tennis racket or violin, etc.
(countable, uncountable)A person's emotional, visceral self.

“I have a funny feeling in my gut.”
(countable, informal, uncountable)A class that is not demanding or challenging.

“You should take Intro Astronomy: it's a gut.”
(countable, uncountable)A narrow passage of water.

“the Gut of Canso”
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, / Which, taken any way you please, is bad, / And strands them in forsaken guts and creeks / No decent soul would think of visiting.”
(countable, uncountable)The sac of silk taken from a silkworm when ready to spin its cocoon, for the purpose of drawing it out into a thread. When dry, it is exceedingly strong, and is used as the snood of a fishing line.
(abbreviation, alt-of, initialism)Initialism of grand unification theory or grand unified theory.

verb

(transitive)To eviscerate.

“Holonym: field dress”
“The fisherman guts the fish before cooking them.”
“The lioness gutted her prey.”
(transitive)To remove or destroy the most important parts of.

“Fire gutted the building.”
“Congress gutted the welfare bill.”
“The fuselage came to rest 522 feet from the initial impact point on a magnetic heading of 175 degrees. The complete fuselage from the nose section, including the nose gear section, aft to the empennage, was extensively burned and gutted by fire. The cabin area, which consisted of only the lower fuselage, was melted and the metal was visible in the ice.”
(transitive)To dishearten; to crush (the spirits of).

“They were gutted by the court's decision.”
“It's no worse than what he said in Miami, but hearing him repeat it, attribute it to my father...it guts me. “That's who your family is. Who you are. Stangers—Stanleys, whatever your fucking names are,” he spits.”
“What's bothering me is that I'd felt more for him than I realized, and it guts me that it's over before it can really get going.”

adj

Made of gut.

“a violin with gut strings”
Instinctive.

“gut reaction”

name

A surname from German.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

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