come a gutser

English

Etymology

From falling on ones gut, or belly.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Verb

come a gutser (third-person singular simple present comes a gutser, present participle coming a gutser, simple past came a gutser, past participle come a gutser)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) To do a belly flop; to fall flat on one's face.
   • 1964, Ron Helmer, Stag Party, page 82:

     Slippery as a butcher's apron it is, and I comes a gutser twice before I gets down to the stag.

   • 2001, Anita Bell, Crystal Coffin, →ISBN, page 33:

     You took off up Main Street past the church, jumped the gutter, two cars and a four-foot fence, and finally come a gutser in the gully below the cop station.

   • 2012, A. Bertram Chandler, Ride the Star Winds, →ISBN:

     “Come off it, skipper. There's nobody to miss us if this scow comes a gutser. We're expendable, even more so than the average Rim Runner officer. And that's saying plenty.”

   • 2013, Glyn Parry, Sad Boys, →ISBN:

     Until he tripped again and came a gutser. This time he stayed down.

2. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) To fail miserably; to make a huge mistake; to fall flat on one's face.
   • 1919, C. Hampton Thorp, A Handful of Ausseys, page 288:

     Ole Fritz keeps on tryin' ter feel our possies at night with small patrols, an' they tried ter raid us two nights ago, but came a gutser, 'coz we hopped out an' met 'em, an' they put their 'ands up.

   • 1982, New Zealand Parliament House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates - Volume 443, page 439:

     The Government has come a gutser there, and it will come a gutser in the health area when it tries to put the user-pays principle in operation.

   • 2011, Alan Ramsay, A Matter of Opinion, →ISBN, page 90:

     Well, where you all come a gutser is, over here, we think we're born to rule YOU.

   • 2016, Art Collins, In The Outback, →ISBN:

     Unless we come a gutser, we won't get near them.

Related terms

• come a cropper, come a smeller