come a gutser

slang

1. To fall down. Primarily heard in Australia. These shoes are too big and caused me to come a gutser as I was walking down the street. Don't worry about the baby—now that she's learning to walk, she comes a gutser every few minutes, it seems. Stay off those icy steps or you'll come a gutser!

2. To fail. Primarily heard in Australia. Once heralded as a future star of the tech world, Shane came a gutser when his product proved to be a dud. I'm worried that my father's company is going to come a gutser because of the incompetent new CEO. Mum, please don't get sucked into Rich's latest scheme—you know they all come a gutser.

come a gutser

suffer a failure or defeat. informal

Gutser (also spelled gutzer ) is explained in Fraser and Gibbons' Soldier and Sailor Words ( 1925 ) as ‘pre-war slang, and an old term among Scottish boys for falling flat on the water in diving, instead of making a clean header’. In air-force slang come (or fetch) a gutser meant ‘crash’.