duck's guts

English

Alternative forms

• ducks guts, ducks' guts

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

duck's guts pl (plural only)

1. (Australia, informal) Something superlative, something outstanding. [from 1970s]
   • 1994 November 9, Christopher Martin Ellison, Robert Lindsay Collins, “ATSIC AMENDMENT (INDIGENOUS LAND CORPORATION AND LAND FUND) BILL”, in Parliament of Australia, Senate Hansard‎^[1]:

     Senator Collins —And the ILC will support it.
     Senator ELLISON —If it supports it. This is the ducks guts, as we term it in Western Australia. It depends upon whether the ILC says it is a good idea, because I will bet Senator Collins a guinea to a gooseberry that these people—
     Senator Collins —Is that another thing that Western Australians say?

   • 2002, Brett D'Arcy, The Mindless Ferocity of Sharks, page 208:

     A line of stationary engines, knocked up between the wars in the wheat-belt town of Wagin, is just about the duck's guts of collectibles, so far as he is concerned.

   • 2012, Pete Hay, “The Duck's Guts”, in Last Days of the Mill‎^[2]:

     But I'm not about t'grizzle -
     she was th duck's guts, me time at th Pulp.
     I always believed in a good day's work fr a fair pay
     and I got on there. […]

2. (Barbados, slang) A difficult or awkward situation, trouble. [from 1960s]
   • 2018 January 31, “We are close to ducks’ guts, says economist”, in Barbados Today‎^[3], archived from the original on 1 February 2018:

     “We are at a really precarious time in our history. If we can’t get the investors in and we are not achieving a growth agenda as a country, but a consolidation agenda, we are in ducks’ guts,” he [Jeremy Stephen] said.

   • 2018 March 27, pieceuhderockyeahright (username), “‘Natlee’ the Former Prostitute Vying to Expand Her Job Description in the City (comment)”, in Barbados Underground‎^[4]:

     De cuntry in duck’s guts and wunna heah polemicizing bout how we must elect a former lady of the night cause she got potential

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see duck,‎ gut.

References

• Eric Partridge (2013) “duck’s guts”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd edition, volumes I–II, Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 759.