Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To smash or break, especially forcefully.
  • intransitive verb To render inoperable or unusable.
  • intransitive verb To cause to come to an end; break up.
  • intransitive verb To break or tame (a horse).
  • intransitive verb To cause to become bankrupt or short of money.
  • intransitive verb To place under arrest.
  • intransitive verb To make a police raid on.
  • intransitive verb Slang To reduce in rank; demote.
  • intransitive verb Slang To hit; punch.
  • intransitive verb To undergo breakage; become broken.
  • intransitive verb To burst; break.
  • intransitive verb To become bankrupt or short of money.
  • intransitive verb Games To lose at blackjack by exceeding a score of 21.
  • noun A failure; a flop.
  • noun A time or period of widespread financial depression.
  • noun Slang A punch; a blow.
  • noun Informal A spree.
  • noun An arrest.
  • noun A raid.
  • idiom (bust a nut) To have an orgasm.
  • idiom (ass/balls) /butt) To make a strenuous effort; work very hard.
  • idiom Vulgar Slang (bust (someone's) balls/chops) To make extreme or unreasonable demands of someone.
  • idiom (bust (someone's) balls/chops) To harass or scold someone.
  • idiom (go bust) To go bankrupt.
  • noun A sculpture representing a person's head, shoulders, and upper chest.
  • noun A woman's breasts.
  • noun The human chest.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • A dialectal or vulgar form of burst.
  • noun A tar-mark on sheep.
  • noun The chest, thorax, or breast; the trunk of the human body above the waist.
  • noun In sculpture, the figure of a person in relief, showing only the head, shoulders, and breast.
  • To put a tar-mark upon (sheep).
  • noun A dialectal or vulgar form of burst.
  • noun Specifically, a spree: as, to go on a bust.
  • To break to the saddle, as an intractable bronco.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • 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.
  • noun A woman's bosom{2}.
  • transitive verb informal To arrest, for committing a crime; -- often used in the passive.
  • intransitive verb informal To break or burst.
  • intransitive verb (Card Playing) In blackjack, to draw a card that causes one's total to exceed twenty-one.
  • intransitive verb To go bankrupt.
  • intransitive verb to go bankrupt.
  • intransitive verb or collapse from the effort; -- used in phrases expressing determination to do something

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To break something

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Variant of burst.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French buste, from Italian busto, possibly from Latin bustum, sepulchral monument.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the verb to burst.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French buste < Italian busto, probably from Latin būstum.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Wordie or ____

    September 25, 2008

  • Tar mark upon sheep, commonly the initials of the proprietor's name. --Dr. Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary and Supplement, 1841. Also boost.

    May 10, 2011