Word.ws English Dictionary

guts

/ɡʌts/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern England/ɡʊts/

guts is the plural of gut.

guts is the third-person singular simple present indicative of gut.

Noun (1)

guts pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) The entrails or contents of the abdomen.
  2. (broadly, informal, plural, plural-only) Courage; determination.
    • It must have taken some guts to speak in front of that audience.
    • She doesn't take any nonsense from anyone—she's got guts.
  3. (informal, plural, plural-only) Content, substance.
    • His speech had no guts in it.
  4. (informal, plural, plural-only) The essential, core parts.
    • He knew all about the guts of the business: how things actually get done.
    • The guts of this Rolex watch are rock-solid.
    Synonyms:
    bowels, marrow, sum, brass tacks, core, crux, essence, gist, drift, gravamen
  5. (informal, plural, plural-only) One's innermost feelings.
    • If you need someone to spill your guts out to, I'm here.
  6. (Australia, New Zealand, plural, plural-only) The ring in the gambling game two-up in which the spinner operates; the centre.
  7. (informal, plural, plural-only, Australian rules football) The center of the field.

Verb

guts (third-person singular simple present gutses, present participle gutsing, simple past and past participle gutsed)

  1. (Australia, informal) To eat greedily.
  2. (informal) To show determination or courage (especially in the combination guts out).
    • He gutsed out a 6-1 win.

Meaning of gut

Noun

gut (countable and uncountable, plural guts)

  1. The alimentary canal, especially the intestine.
  2. (informal) The abdomen of a person, especially one that is enlarged.
    • You've developed quite a beer gut since I last met you.
  3. (uncountable) The intestines of an animal used to make strings of a tennis racket or violin, etc.
    Synonyms:
    catgut
  4. A person's emotional, visceral self.
    • I have a funny feeling in my gut.
  5. (informal) A class that is not demanding or challenging.
    • You should take Intro Astronomy: it's a gut.
  6. (especially) A narrow channel, passage, or stream of water. (Compare gote.)
    • the Gut of Canso

See all 13 meanings of gut

Noun (2) capitalized: GUTs

GUTs

  1. (plural) plural of GUT

Proper noun capitalized: Guts

Guts

  1. (plural) plural of Gut

Synonyms of guts

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of guts

third-person singular presentgutses
present participlegutsing
past participlegutsed
pastgutsed

Words formed from guts

Phrases with guts

27 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with guts

4 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about guts

What does guts mean?
Guts means the entrails or contents of the abdomen.
What is guts the plural of?
Guts is the plural of gut.
What part of speech is guts?
Guts can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce guts?
Guts is pronounced /ɡʌts/.

Words near guts in the dictionary

  1. gutoxon
  2. gutra
  3. Gutridge
  4. Gutridges
  5. gutrot
  6. guts
  7. guts for
  8. guts out
  9. guts up
  10. gutsed
  11. gutsed out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: guts (page history and authors); GUTs (page history and authors); Guts (page history and authors); 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Back ache-guts.wav.

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