GUTS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does guts mean? 

• GUTS (noun)
  The noun GUTS has 1 sense:

1. fortitude and determination

  Familiarity information: GUTS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GUTS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Fortitude and determination

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

backbone; grit; gumption; guts; moxie; sand

Context example:

he didn't have the guts to try it

Hypernyms ("guts" is a kind of...):

fortitude (strength of mind that enables one to endure adversity with courage)

Domain usage:

colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)

Derivation:

gutsy (marked by courage and determination in the face of difficulties or danger; robust and uninhibited)

 Context examples 

The researchers theorize that the ancestors of all enterococci lived in the guts of prehistoric aquatic animals, and as their hosts left the sea around 425 million years ago, the bacteria were carried along.

(Enterococci may have evolved antimicrobial resistance millions of years ago, NIH)

A phylum of bacteria composed of three large classes of bacteria that are widely distributed in the environment, including in soil, in sediments, sea water and in the guts of animals.

(Bacteroidetes, NCI Thesaurus)

Zhiyong Xi, molecular geneticist at MSU and lead researcher of the team, infected millions of factory-reared male mosquitoes with Wolbachia, a type of bacteria found in insect guts.

(Mosquitos rendered infertile by biological engineering, SciDev.Net)

Of the 100 salps Brandon surveyed from water samples collected in 2009, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017, 100 percent had mini-microplastics in their guts.

(Microplastics million times more abundant in the ocean than previously thought, National Science Foundation)

It's guts, and magazines have no use for that particular commodity.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Researchers have discovered how specific cells in the guts of mice slow down metabolism and eventually contribute to obesity, diabetes, hypertension and atherosclerosis.

(Some gut cells slow down metabolism, accelerate cardiovascular disease, National Institutes of Health)

And I shall know that I must die, at sea most likely, cease crawling of myself to be all a-crawl with the corruption of the sea; to be fed upon, to be carrion, to yield up all the strength and movement of my muscles that it may become strength and movement in fin and scale and the guts of fishes.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He had a large pair of bellows, with a long slender muzzle of ivory: this he conveyed eight inches up the anus, and drawing in the wind, he affirmed he could make the guts as lank as a dried bladder.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Researchers at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard examined DNA from 24 species of enterococci, taken from the guts of a wide variety of animal and human hosts.

(Enterococci may have evolved antimicrobial resistance millions of years ago, NIH)

Now, researchers have traced evidence of the bacteria’s evolutionary history back 425 million years and theorize that the same traits that allow the bacteria to thrive in hospitals likely emerged when they were carried onto land in the guts of the world’s first terrestrial animals.

(Enterococci may have evolved antimicrobial resistance millions of years ago, NIH)