bust
/bʌst/ verb, noun, adjective
Forms busts busting busted
- verb (transitive, colloquial, chiefly US) To break. “I busted my cooker while trying to fix it.”
- verb (transitive, slang) To arrest (someone or a group of people) for a crime. “Aaron got busted by the feds for leaking confidential government documents on Reddit.”
- verb (transitive, slang) To catch (someone) in the act of doing something wrong, socially and morally inappropriate, or illegal, especially when being done in a sneaky or secretive state.
- verb (transitive, slang) To debunk, dispel (a belief). “We want to bust the myth that real men don't eat quiche.”
- verb (snowboarding) An emphatic synonym of do or get. “He busted huge air off that jump!”
- verb (US, informal) To reduce in rank. “He busted him down to patrolman for insubordination.”
- verb (finance, transitive) To undo a trade, generally an error trade, that has already been executed.
- verb (poker) To lose all of one's chips.
- noun (slang) The act of arresting someone for a crime, or raiding a suspected criminal operation. “a narcotics bust”
- noun (slang) A police raid or takedown of a criminal enterprise.
- noun (slang) A failed enterprise; a bomb.
- noun (chess, slang) A refutation of an opening, or of a previously published analysis.
- noun (slang) A disappointment.
- noun (sports, derogatory) A player who fails to meet expectations.
- noun (economics) The downward portion of a boom and bust cycle; a recession.
- noun (slang, dated) A spree, unrestrained revel, or wild party.
- adjective (slang) Without any money, broke, bankrupt. “After months of financial problems, the company finally went bust.”
- noun A sculptural portrayal of a person's head and shoulders.
- noun A woman's breasts; the circumference of her chest measured around the breasts.
Synonyms
nick flop fizzle female chest tear binge bout break raid rupture snap wear wear out fall apart burst broke skint stone-broke stony-broke
Etymology
From Middle English busten, a variant of bursten, bresten (“to burst”). Compare Low German basten, a variant of barsten (“to burst”). Cognate with burst and bost.
Borrowed from French buste, from Italian busto (“torso, upper body”), assumed to stem from Latin bustum (“funeral monument, tomb," originally "funeral pyre, place where corpses are burned”). Perhaps shortened from Latin ambustum, neuter of ambustus (“scorched”), past participle of ambūrō (“burn all over, scorch”), from ambi- (“around”) + ūrō (“to burn”).
Compare Old Norse beysti.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A piece of sculpture representing the upper part of the human figure, including the head, shoulders, and breast.
- noun The portion of the human figure included between the head and waist, whether in statuary or in the person; the chest or thorax; the upper part of the trunk of the body.
Etymology [F. buste, fr. It. busto; cf. LL. busta, bustula, box, of the same origin as E. box a case; cf., for the change of meaning, E. chest. See Bushel.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “bust”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details