"gangbusters" meaning in All languages combined

See gangbusters on Wiktionary

Adjective [English]

Audio: en-us-gangbusters.ogg
Etymology: The adjective and adverb are a shortening of the phrase like gangbusters. Head templates: {{head|en|adjective}} gangbusters
  1. (colloquial, UK) Very successful or profitable. Tags: UK, colloquial
    Sense id: en-gangbusters-en-adj-9xgL9Ytt Categories (other): British English

Adverb [English]

Audio: en-us-gangbusters.ogg
Etymology: The adjective and adverb are a shortening of the phrase like gangbusters. Head templates: {{en-adv|-}} gangbusters (not comparable)
  1. (colloquial) With great energy or speed; very well. Tags: colloquial, not-comparable
    Sense id: en-gangbusters-en-adv-2EqWmt3r Categories (other): English terms with collocations

Noun [English]

Audio: en-us-gangbusters.ogg
Etymology: The adjective and adverb are a shortening of the phrase like gangbusters. Head templates: {{head|en|noun form}} gangbusters
  1. plural of gangbuster Tags: form-of, plural Form of: gangbuster Derived forms: like gangbusters
    Sense id: en-gangbusters-en-noun-sQHdw5-O Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 43 2 55 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 42 0 58 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 38 0 62
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        "(colloquial, UK) Very successful or profitable."
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          "ref": "2015 July 13, “Monday’s best TV”, in The Guardian:",
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          "text": "Clearly this is a moment tailor-made for the front crawl, but I can't do front crawl so instead I opt to skull, the swan-like grace of my upper body belying the fact that under the water my legs are going absolutely gangbusters.",
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          "ref": "2018 October 21, Jeffrey Lewis, quotee, “Trump says US will withdraw from nuclear arms treaty with Russia”, in The Guardian:",
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          "ref": "2022 February 4, Manori Ravindran, “Signature Entertainment Brings West Ham United Owner David Sullivan Back Into the Fold, Expands Production Might”, in Variety:",
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          "ref": "2024 December 5, Madhumita Murgia, quoting Dario Amodei, “Anthropic’s Dario Amodei: Democracies must maintain the lead in AI”, in Financial Times:",
          "text": "The position that we should go gangbusters and use it to make anything we want — up to and including doomsday weapons — that’s obviously just as crazy. We’re trying to seek the middle ground, to do things responsibly.",
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        "With great energy or speed; very well."
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        "(colloquial) With great energy or speed; very well."
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        "(colloquial) With great energy or speed; very well."
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Download raw JSONL data for gangbusters meaning in All languages combined (5.6kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-08-18 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-08-02 using wiktextract (0c45963 and 3c020d2). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.