bust
/bʌst/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Northern England/bʊst/
bust verb: to break.
Verb
bust (third-person singular simple present busts, present participle busting, simple past and past participle busted or bust)
- To break.
- I busted my cooker while trying to fix it.
- To arrest (someone or a group of people) for a crime.
- Aaron got busted by the feds for leaking confidential government documents on Reddit.
- Synonyms:
- nick
- To catch (someone) in the act of doing something wrong, socially and morally inappropriate, or illegal, especially when being done in a sneaky or secretive state.
- To debunk, dispel (a belief).
- We want to bust the myth that real men don't eat quiche.
- An emphatic synonym of do or get.
- He busted huge air off that jump!
- To reduce in rank.
- He busted him down to patrolman for insubordination.
- If Steinkamp doesn't take off that hat and stop messing around, I'm gonna bust him into a PFC.1962, The Manchurian Candidate, 01:56:35
- To undo a trade, generally an error trade, that has already been executed.
- To lose all of one's chips.
- To exceed a score of 21.
- To break in (an animal).
- A few weeks later, Richard was killed accidentally while busting a wild mustang […]1997, Charles Oswald, Gone with the Western Wind
- To have sex with (a woman or girl) for the first time, to take another's virginity.
- Smith hears Nancy's protests - "Don't ... no, please don't." - when Hicock menaces her with "You ever had a man?" Finding Hicock rubbing her thigh as she whimpers in fear, Smith confronts him about his intentions, and Hicock says, "First, I'm going to bust that little girl." Smith tells him no, but...2014, Tison Pugh, Truman Capote: A Literary Life at the Movies, page 127
- To ejaculate; to eject semen or to squirt.
- I busted a fat one just wackin' it to the selfie she sent me.
- After ten times we fucked, I think I bust twice
He was nice, kept my neck filled with ice1996, Lil' Kim, “Not Tonight”
Show 5 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
- For a headline to exceed the amount of space reserved for it.
- The temptation to squeeze in a favourite headline that busts by using the flexibility of new technology is often very strong.1990, Paul Williams, The Computerized Newspaper: A Practical Guide for Systems Users, page 105
- If your headline busts (breaks the confines of the layout) you will know straightaway. Similarly, the computer will inform you, in terms of the number of lines, how much longer or shorter the copy is in relation to the space allotted.2007, Rob Steen, Sports Journalism: A Multimedia Primer, page 167
- To refute an established opening.
- So is the King's Gambit really busted?2012 April 2, Frederic Friedel, “Rajlich: Busting the King's Gambit, this time for sure”, in ChessBase
- To shoot (a gun).
- He busted his glock.
- To attack, hit or insult (someone).
- He's always busting on you.
- To do or perform; to move quickly.
- Bust a left turn.
Noun (1)
bust (plural busts)
- The act of arresting someone for a crime, or raiding a suspected criminal operation.
- a narcotics bust
- A police raid or takedown of a criminal enterprise.
- A failed enterprise; a bomb.
- A refutation of an opening, or of a previously published analysis.
- A disappointment.
- Paris was a bust. They wouldn't even let us see the Mona Lisa.2014 November 2, “Opposites A-Frack”, in The Simpsons, season 26, episode 5
- A player who fails to meet expectations.
- The downward portion of a boom and bust cycle; a recession.
- A spree, unrestrained revel, or wild party.
Adjective
bust (not comparable)
Noun (2)
bust (plural busts)
- A sculptural portrayal of a person's head and shoulders.
- A woman's breasts; the circumference of her chest measured around the breasts.
bust meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
bust in Tamil
- மார்பளவு உருவச்சிலை, மார்பளவுச் சிலை, மார்புப் பகுதி
bust in Urdu
- گات
bust in Malayalam
- മുഖം, മാറ് എന്നിവ മാത്രമുള്ള പ്രതിമ
bust in Kannada
- ಎದೆಮಟ್ಟದ ವಿಗ್ರಹ, ಎದೆಮಟ್ಟದ ಪ್ರತಿಮೆ, ಬಸ್ಟು, ಎದೆಯ ಮೇಲ್ಭಾಗದ ಪ್ರತಿಮೆ, ಎದೆ, ವಕ್ಷಸ್ಥಲ
More languagesFewer languages
- bust in Punjabi
- ਬਸਟ ਕਰਨਾ
- bust in Nepali
- बस्ट गर्न
- bust in Tagalog
- busto
Examples of bust in a sentence
- I saw you take that cookie from the cookie jar! You're busted!
- I thought I'd draw another spade, but I ended up with a busted flush.
- I've been busting my chops to get this out by end of day.
Synonyms of bust
Forms of bust
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | busts |
| present participle | busting |
| past participle | busted |
| past | busted |
| past participle | bust |
| past | bust |
| Noun | |
| plural | busts |
Origin of bust
From Middle English busten, a variant of bursten, bresten (“to burst”). Compare Low German basten, a variant of barsten (“to burst”). Cognate with burst and bost.
Borrowed from French buste, from Italian busto (“torso, upper body”), assumed to stem from Latin bustum (“funeral monument, tomb," originally "funeral pyre, place where corpses are burned”). Perhaps shortened from Latin ambustum, neuter of ambustus (“scorched”), past participle of ambūrō (“burn all over, scorch”), from ambi- (“around”) + ūrō (“to burn”). Compare Old Norse beysti.
Words formed from bust
- busted
- go bust
- ball-bust
- belly-busting
- bunker-busting
- bustable
- bust a cap
- bust a cap in someone's ass
- bust a gasket
- bust a gut
- bust a move
- bust a nut
- bust around
- bust ass
- bust ass cold
- bust a U
- bust chops
- bust down
- bust-down
- buster
- bust in
- bust into
- bust it down
- bust loose
- bust off
- bust on
- bust one's ass
- bust one's balls
- bust one's butt
- bust one's chops
- bust one's gut
- bust one's hump
- bust one's neck
- bust out
- bust-out
- bust sod
- bust someone's agates
- bust someone's ass
- bust someone's balls
- bust the dust
- genre-busting
- gut-busting
- lung-busting
- mutton busting
- mythbust
- trend-busting
- bust up
- buy-bust
- baby bust
- beer-bust
- boom-and-bust
- boom or bust
- busthead
- cloudbust
- drug bust
- or bust
- bust improver
- bustlike
- bustline
- busty
Phrases with bust
Words that rhyme with bust
25 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about bust
- What does bust mean?
- Bust means to break.
- What is bust in Tamil?
- Bust in Tamil is மார்பளவு உருவச்சிலை, மார்பளவுச் சிலை, மார்புப் பகுதி. See Bust meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is bust?
- Bust can be a verb, a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce bust?
- Bust is pronounced /bʌst/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of bust?
- The past tense of bust is busted.
Words near bust in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bust (page history and authors); bust (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bust (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bust (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bust (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bust (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bust (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bust.wav, en-us-bust.ogg, en-au-bust.ogg.
Cite this entry: “bust.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bust. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.