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gangbuster
[gang-buhs-ter]
noun
a law-enforcement officer who specializes in breaking up organized crime, often by forceful or sensational means.
someone or something having great impact, usually in a positive way.
gangbusters, an outstandingly successful state or situation.
We aren't looking for gangbusters, but we'd like you to pass all your subjects this semester.
adjective
of or like a law-enforcement officer who uses rough, aggressive, or sensational tactics in fighting crime.
The undercover agents avoided the gangbusters approach.
strikingly effective or successful.
a gangbusters year for compact cars.
enthusiastic.
I'm not gangbusters over the idea.
51Թ History and Origins
Origin of gangbuster1
Idioms and Phrases
like gangbusters, with great speed, intensity, vigor, impact, or success.
The software market was growing like gangbusters. The hockey team came on at the beginning of the season like gangbusters.
go gangbusters, to be extremely successful.
The movie went gangbusters.
Example Sentences
It’ll play like gangbusters in a crowded theater and you should watch it there to appreciate its excellent use of surround sound.
The Long Beach port was dedicated in 1911, and like Southern California itself, went like gangbusters.
Climate change is allowing Aedes mosquitoes — and diseases they spread — to move into new areas and go gangbusters in places where they’re established.
Slanting the dialogue of a major theatrical gangbuster toward hesitation or negativity only feeds the slop machine.
Pressed over whether the government's messaging could be making the situation worse, Sir Keir said: "No, I don't think so. I don't think that anybody seriously would argue that the NHS is going gangbusters."
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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