gut

1 noun

1 COURAGE guts (plural) informal the courage and determination you need to do something difficult or unpleasant: Sonia succeeded through sheer guts and determination. | have the guts to do sth: No-one had the guts to tell Paul what a mistake he was making.

2 BODY PARTS

a) guts (plural) the organs inside your body

b) the tube through which food passes from your stomach

3 gut reaction/feeling/instinct etc informal a reaction or feeling that you are sure is right, although you cannot give a reason for it: He had a gut feeling that Sarah was lying.

4 hate sb's guts informal to hate someone very much

5 sweat/slog your guts out informal to work very hard

6 at gut level if you know something at gut level, you feel sure about it, though you could not give a reason: She knew at gut level that he was guilty.

7 STRING (U) a type of strong string made from the intestine of an animal

—see also: catgut

8 I'll have sb's guts for garters BrE informal used to say that you would like to punish someone severely for something they have done

—see also: beer belly, bust a gut bust 1 (3), spill your guts spill 1 (4) 2 verb gutted, gutting (T)

1 (usually passive) to completely destroy the inside of a building, especially by fire: The kitchen was completely gutted.

2 to remove the organs from inside a fish or animal in order to prepare it for cooking

3 to change something by removing some of the most important or central parts: gutting the system from the inside so as to restructure it completely

—see also: gutted