Word.ws English Dictionary

bust a gut

bust a gut verb: to work or try very hard.

Verb

bust a gut (third-person singular simple present busts a gut, present participle busting a gut, simple past and past participle busted a gut or bust a gut)

  1. (slang) To work or try very hard.
    • I had to really bust a gut to get it done by the deadline.
    • "I do want a railway that reflects the demands of it, but I also want a railway that is busting a gut to put more passengers on."2026 July 8, Richard Wilcock, “Temporary service reduction 'only what any clever business would do'”, in RAIL, number 1065, page 8
  2. (slang) To develop a pain in the side from laughing hard.
    • Something about the way he said that made me just bust a gut: I practically died laughing!

Forms of bust a gut

third-person singular presentbusts a gut
present participlebusting a gut
past participlebusted a gut
pastbusted a gut
past participlebust a gut
pastbust a gut

Questions about bust a gut

What does bust a gut mean?
Bust a gut means to work or try very hard.
What part of speech is bust a gut?
Bust a gut is a verb.
What is the past tense of bust a gut?
The past tense of bust a gut is busted a gut.

Words near bust a gut in the dictionary

  1. bussy
  2. bust
  3. bust a cap
  4. bust a cap in someone's ass
  5. bust a gasket
  6. bust a gut
  7. bust a move
  8. bust a nut
  9. bust a U
  10. bust around
  11. bust ass

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bust a gut (page history and authors). 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: En-au-bust a gut.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bust a gut.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bust_a_gut. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.