"bust one's balls" meaning in English

See bust one's balls in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-bust one's balls.ogg [Australia] Forms: busts one's balls [present, singular, third-person], busting one's balls [participle, present], busted one's balls [participle, past], busted one's balls [past], bust one's balls [participle, past], bust one's balls [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*|past2=~}} bust one's balls (third-person singular simple present busts one's balls, present participle busting one's balls, simple past and past participle busted one's balls or bust one's balls)
  1. (idiomatic, vulgar) To work very hard; to put in a lot of effort. Tags: idiomatic, vulgar Synonyms: bust one's arse, bust one's butt Related terms: bust someone's balls, bust a nut
    Sense id: en-bust_one's_balls-en-verb-O5a43fiU Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for bust one's balls meaning in English (1.7kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "busts one's balls",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "busting one's balls",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "busted one's balls",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "busted one's balls",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "bust one's balls",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "bust one's balls",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "past2": "~"
      },
      "expansion": "bust one's balls (third-person singular simple present busts one's balls, present participle busting one's balls, simple past and past participle busted one's balls or bust one's balls)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To work very hard; to put in a lot of effort."
      ],
      "id": "en-bust_one's_balls-en-verb-O5a43fiU",
      "links": [
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, vulgar) To work very hard; to put in a lot of effort."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "bust someone's balls"
        },
        {
          "word": "bust a nut"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "bust one's arse"
        },
        {
          "word": "bust one's butt"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-bust one's balls.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/6c/En-au-bust_one%27s_balls.ogg/En-au-bust_one%27s_balls.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/En-au-bust_one%27s_balls.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "bust one's balls"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "busts one's balls",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "busting one's balls",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "busted one's balls",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "busted one's balls",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "bust one's balls",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "bust one's balls",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "past2": "~"
      },
      "expansion": "bust one's balls (third-person singular simple present busts one's balls, present participle busting one's balls, simple past and past participle busted one's balls or bust one's balls)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "bust someone's balls"
    },
    {
      "word": "bust a nut"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English verbs",
        "English vulgarities"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To work very hard; to put in a lot of effort."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, vulgar) To work very hard; to put in a lot of effort."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-bust one's balls.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/6c/En-au-bust_one%27s_balls.ogg/En-au-bust_one%27s_balls.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/En-au-bust_one%27s_balls.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "bust one's arse"
    },
    {
      "word": "bust one's butt"
    }
  ],
  "word": "bust one's balls"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.