Word.ws English Dictionary

gutless wonder

gutless wonder noun: one who lacks guts or courage; a coward.

Noun

gutless wonder (plural gutless wonders)

  1. (derogatory, idiomatic, slang) One who lacks guts or courage; a coward.
    • What in the hell was wrong with him, anyway. Just a gutless wonder - nothing more or less.1936, F.J. Thwaites, chapter XII, in The Redemption, Sydney: H. John Edwards, published 1940, page 125
    • Yer can't even fight unless you've got a knife or picket or broken bottle, yer gutless wonder.1993, Archie Weller, Going Home

Forms of gutless wonder

pluralgutless wonders

Origin of gutless wonder

The idea is that the addressee's figurative gutlessness (cowardice) has been carried over into physical gutlessness (disembowelment), and that his bowel-less survival is a wonder.

Questions about gutless wonder

What does gutless wonder mean?
Gutless wonder means one who lacks guts or courage; a coward.
What part of speech is gutless wonder?
Gutless wonder is a noun.
What is the plural of gutless wonder?
The plural of gutless wonder is gutless wonders.

Words near gutless wonder in the dictionary

  1. Gutknechts
  2. Gutkowski
  3. Gutkowskis
  4. Gutland
  5. gutless
  6. gutless wonder
  7. gutless wonders
  8. gutlessly
  9. gutlessness
  10. gutlike
  11. gutling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gutless wonder (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-gutless wonder.ogg.

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