Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. tough, spirited, brave; thus gutsiness, courage, spirit.

1942		C.R. Bond 25 Jan. in A Flying Tiger’s Diary (1984) 81: My first impression is that they are sissified dainties, but others say they are gutsy guys.
1959		A. Sinclair My Friend Judas (1963) 133: Being a plain must have given her twenty years of learning to be gutsy.
1962		H.S. Thompson letter 6 June in Proud Highway (1997) 342: They are a gutsy lot at times.
1975		D. Goines Inner City Hoodlum 58: Trying to sound gutsy and hard.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 114: They’re gutsy little devils.
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 102: Jesus Christ, man! I’ve seen gutsy things, but you’re the wildest.
1997		G. Sikes 8 Ball Chicks (1998) 180: The mob eluded arrest until the gutsy eighth-grade girl confronted three of them one day.
2005		L. Theroux Call of the Weird (2006) 149: I thought that was real gutsy.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] The staid and clannish legal profession did not take kindly to this pintsized gutsy lady making waves.
2013		D.A. Summers ‘Nothing to Lose’ in ThugLit Nov.-Dec. [ebook] ‘That was some gutsy move’.

2. greedy, very hungry.

1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 187: They call him [...] gutsy sod.
1971		N. Armfelt Catching Up 221: You gutsy thing, Melva—you’ve eated all Dad’s!