Word.ws English Dictionary

gangbusters

gangbusters is the plural of gangbuster.

Meaning of gangbuster

Noun

gangbuster (plural gangbusters)

  1. A law enforcement officer who specializes in disrupting organized crime.
    Synonyms:
    crimebuster

Adjective

gangbusters

  1. (UK, colloquial) Very successful or profitable.
    • What went wrong for Ophelia Lovibond? It was all looking gangbusters after a string of entry-level Hollywood roles.2011 September 15, Cath Clarke, “Turnout – review”, in The Guardian

Adverb

gangbusters (not comparable)

  1. (colloquial) With great energy or speed; very well.
    • to go gangbusters
    • This follows Llewelyn-Bowen on a promotional parade through China, his hopes resting largely on the basis that his British quirkiness will go gangbusters with Shanghai shoppers.2015 July 13, “Monday’s best TV”, in The Guardian

Origin of gangbusters

The adjective and adverb are a shortening of the phrase like gangbusters.

Words formed from gangbusters

Questions about gangbusters

What does gangbusters mean?
Gangbusters means very successful or profitable.
What is gangbusters the plural of?
Gangbusters is the plural of gangbuster.
What part of speech is gangbusters?
Gangbusters can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near gangbusters in the dictionary

  1. gangbo
  2. gangboard
  3. gangboards
  4. gangbos
  5. gangbuster
  6. gangbusters
  7. gangbusting
  8. Gangca
  9. gangday
  10. gangdays
  11. gangdom

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gangbusters (page history and authors); gangbuster (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-us-gangbusters.ogg.

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