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Definition

noun, plural: guts

(1) The portions of the alimentary canal, particularly the stomach and the intestines (sometimes including the anus, especially in animals that eliminate wastes through the anus, in contrast to other animals that excrete waste through the mouth or by other means)

(2) Intestine (of a vertebrate animal)

(3) Abdomen; stomach

(4) Bowel; enteron

(5) Embryonic digestive tube; the tube in vertebrate embryo that later gives rise to alimentary canal, lungs, and liver

(6) Animal intestines prepared for commercial use, such as sheep guts prepared as surgical suture

(7) The sac of silk from a silkworm for use as a thread or a snood of a fish line

Supplement

Word origin: Old English guttas, probably related to ġēotan (to pour)

Related term(s):

• Preoral gut
• Primitive gut
• Postcloacal gut
• foregut
• midgut
• hindgut