Meaning & use
gut feeling
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A strong belief or feeling about something that comes from instinct rather than from facts or reasoning.
Grammar: Countable; often used in the plural: 'I had a gut feeling.' / 'Trust your gut feelings.'
Patterns
- have a gut feeling
- a gut feeling about something
- a gut feeling that + clause
I had a gut feeling that something was wrong, so I called her.
She ignored her gut feeling and took the job anyway.
My gut feeling about him turned out to be right.
nouncountable
An immediate physical sensation in the stomach, often caused by emotion such as fear or excitement.
Grammar: Usually singular in this physical sense: 'a gut feeling of dread'.
Patterns
- a gut feeling of something
- get a gut feeling
As the roller coaster climbed, I got a strange gut feeling.
He described a gut feeling of nausea before the exam.
Word forms
| plural | gut feelings |
|---|
Common combinations
- trust your gut feeling
- When the data is unclear, sometimes you have to trust your gut feeling.
- a strong gut feeling
- She had a strong gut feeling that he was lying.
- go with your gut feeling
- I decided to go with my gut feeling and buy the house.
- a gut feeling about someone
- What's your gut feeling about the new manager?
- ignore a gut feeling
- He ignored his gut feeling and regretted it later.
Synonyms and how they differ
- intuition
- More formal and neutral; it can refer to the ability to know things instinctively, not just a single feeling.
- hunch
- Very close in meaning, but often suggests a suspicion or guess rather than a deep physical feeling.
- instinct
- Often refers to natural behavior or reaction, especially in animals or inborn human responses, rather than a specific belief.
Word family
Commonly confused: gut feeling or gut reaction?
gut feeling vs gut reaction
A 'gut reaction' is an immediate emotional response, often before you have time to think; a 'gut feeling' is more like a lasting belief or intuition.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'gut feeling' correctly?
Choose one answer.
Option 0 uses the common pattern 'have a gut feeling that + clause'. Option 1 is wrong because 'a gut feeling to eat' is not a natural pattern for this meaning; you would say 'I feel like eating pizza'. Option 2 confuses the phrase with physical hunger. Option 3 uses 'gut feeling' as a verb, which is not grammatical.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “gut feeling”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.