Word.ws English Dictionary

guttle

Syllables: gut·tle/ˈɡʌtl̩//ˈɡʌt(ə)l/

guttle verb: often followed by down or up: to swallow (something) greedily; to gobble, to guzzle.

guttle: often followed by down or up: to swallow (something) greedily; to gobble, to guzzle
Image: Hinko Smrekar, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb (1)

guttle (third-person singular simple present guttles, present participle guttling, simple past and past participle guttled)

  1. (UK, archaic, dialectal, transitive) Often followed by down or up: to swallow (something) greedily; to gobble, to guzzle.
    • VVhy a Hot Iron vvould have Hiſs'd if you had but Spit upon't. The Fool carry'd this Philoſophy avvay vvith him, and took an Occaſion aftervvard to Spit in his Porridge, to try if they'd Hiſs. They did not Hiſs it ſeems, and ſo he Guttled 'em up, and Scalt his Chops.1692, Roger L’Estrange, “[A Supplement of Fables […].] Fab[le] CCCCXXXVIII. A Fool and a Hot Iron.”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC...
    • And Marſeus (he vvho gave his houſe to the actreſs Origo) lives again in the perſon of their young heir, vvho novv guttles dovvn vvith an actreſs the laſt mortgage of an eſtate he has near the Eſcurial.1759, [Alain-René] Lesage, “Of which the Subject is Inexhaustible”, in The Devil upon Crutches: From the Diable Boiteux of Mr. Lesage, a New Translation. […], 2nd edition, volume I, London: […] T....
  2. (UK, archaic, dialectal, intransitive) To eat voraciously; to gorge.
    • One, Frugal, on his Birth-Day fears to dine: / Does at a Penny's coſt in Herbs repine, / And hardly dares to dip his Fingers in the Brine. / Prepar'd as Prieſt of his ovvn Rites, to ſtand, / He ſprinkles Pepper vvith a ſparing hand. / His Jolly Brother, oppoſite in ſence, / Laughs at his Thrift...1693, Aulus Persius Flaccus, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus.] The Sixth Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together...
    • Time vvas, e'er Temperance had fled the realm; / E're Luxury ſat guttling at the helm / From meal to meal, vvithout one moment's ſpace […]a. 1765 (date written), C[harles] Churchill, “The Times”, in Poems […], volume II, [London]: [s.n.], published 1768, →OCLC, page 258
    Synonyms:
    gormandize

Noun

guttle (plural guttles)

  1. (UK, archaic, dialectal) An act of swallowing voraciously.
    • The top of the great stained glass windows at each end of the hall, are cut off to accommodate a new flat plaster roof;—the old Gothic one, with its rich groining and carved work, could not be renewed but at the expense of at least two guttles!1817 October 4, William Hone, “The Guttlers, and the New Lord Mayor”, in The Reformists’ Register, and Weekly Commentary, volume II, number 11, London: […] William Hone, […], →OCLC, column 324
    • You don't know what it is to want rum, you don't: it gets to that p'int that you would kill a 'ole ship's company for just one guttle of it.1884, Robert Louis Stevenson, W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, “Admiral Guinea”, in Sidney Colvin, editor, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Edinburgh edition, volume XXIII (Drama), Edinburgh: […]...
  2. (UK, archaic, dialectal) One who eats voraciously; a glutton.
    • [P]lague tak the greedy guttles, I wish they wud gie ae meal, out o' the five, to their head.1839, “A devoted friend, to non-intrusion” [pseudonym], “Dedication. To the Farmers in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright.”, in A Letter to William Maxwell, Esq., Younger, of Cardoness, Addressed to Him...
    • Our doctor used to call me a ravenous eater; my mamma remarked I was blessed with an excellent appetite; cook said I was ‘a rare good one for vittals;’ and James, my own brother, whom I loved almost as much as stewed beef, invariably called me a ‘guttles.’ This unkind nickname pained me. It was...[1866, Augustus Mayhew, “The Almanack of Successful Courtship; […]”, in Faces for Fortunes, new edition, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 330
  3. (UK, archaic, dialectal, obsolete, rare) Something which is eaten voraciously.
    • And can you paſs by money fixed in mud, / Nor ſvvallovv vvith your guttle mercurial ſpittle?1784–1789, Aulus Persius Flaccus, “Satire V”, in M[artin] Madan, transl., A New and Literal Translation of the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus, Dublin: […] John Exshaw, […], published 1795, →OCLC...

Verb (2)

guttle (third-person singular simple present guttles, present participle guttling, simple past and past participle guttled)

  1. (Scotland, UK, archaic, dialectal, transitive) To remove the guts or entrails from (a person or an animal); to disembowel, to eviscerate, to gut.

Verb (3)

guttle (third-person singular simple present guttles, present participle guttling, simple past and past participle guttled)

  1. (Northern England, UK, archaic, dialectal, intransitive) To make a bubbling sound; to gurgle.

Examples of guttle in a sentence

  • Are you, who are setting up to be a man of the world and a philosopher, to tell me that the aim of life is to guttle three courses and dine off silver?1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Way of the World”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume II, London...
  • You married the boy's mother to craze and kill her, and guttle her property.1870 September – 1871 November, George Meredith, “Strange Revelations, and My Grandfather has His Last Innings”, in The Adventures of Harry...
  • O depth of guile! / He blindly guzzles and guttles, // While—who is it dresses the food and pours / The liquor?1890, Robert Browning, “Ponte dell’ Angelo, Venice”, in Asolando: Fancies and Facts, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 66:
  • [I]t doesn't much matter to me so long as I can have a slice of cake before Mieka guttles it all.2017 August, Melanie Rawn, chapter 20, in Playing to the Gods (The Glass Thorns; book 5), New York, N.Y.: Tor Books, →ISBN, page 194:

Synonyms of guttle

19 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of guttle

Forms of guttle

Verb
third-person singular presentguttles
present participleguttling
past participleguttled
pastguttled
Noun
pluralguttles

Origin of guttle

The verb is possibly derived from gut (“belly”) + -le (frequentative suffix), perhaps influenced by guzzle (“to drink or eat quickly, voraciously, or to excess; to gulp down; to swallow greedily, continually, or with gusto”). The noun is derived from the verb.

Borrowed from Scots guttle, from gut (“to eviscerate”) + -le (frequentative suffix).

Origin unknown; possibly imitative of water bubbling or gurgling.

Words formed from guttle

Words that rhyme with guttle

Questions about guttle

What does guttle mean?
Guttle means often followed by down or up: to swallow (something) greedily; to gobble, to guzzle.
How do you use guttle in a sentence?
Are you, who are setting up to be a man of the world and a philosopher, to tell me that the aim of life is to guttle three courses and dine off silver?
What part of speech is guttle?
Guttle can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce guttle?
Guttle is pronounced /ˈɡʌtl̩/ (UK).
What is the past tense of guttle?
The past tense of guttle is guttled.

Words near guttle in the dictionary

  1. gutting
  2. gutting for
  3. gutting out
  4. gutting up
  5. guttings
  6. guttle
  7. guttled
  8. guttler
  9. guttlers
  10. guttles
  11. guttlesome

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: guttle (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-guttle.wav, En-us-guttle.ogg.

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