have the guts

Idioms & Phrases

have the guts

Possess the courage, as in Does he have the guts to dive off the high board? This expression replaces the earlier and now obsolete sense of stomach as "courage," a usage from the early 1500s. [Slang; late 1800s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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