Gut refers to the stomach and intestines, and by extension the inside parts of an animal or person. Informally, it also means courage or instinctive feelings, as in having the guts to do something or a gut feeling.
From Old English “guttas,” meaning “bowels, entrails,” of Germanic origin. The emotional senses grew from the old idea that feelings live in the belly.
We talk about “gut feelings” because people long believed emotions lived in the stomach and intestines. Your gut has so many nerves that modern science now calls it a kind of “second brain,” making the old metaphor strangely accurate.
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