Busted

//ˈbʌs.tɪd// adj, verb, slang

adj, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    simple past and past participle of bust form-of, participle, past
Adjective
  1. 1
    Having a certain type of bust (breasts; cleavage). often

    "Some dolls made in Italy had eyes which could follow one about, others made of felt that had their hair dressed and dyed in grey, silver, or blonde, and wore velvet drainpipe trousers and lace brassières over their slightly busted fronts."

  2. 2
    Broke; having no money. slang

    "I'd like to help you, but I'm busted."

  3. 3
    Caught in the act of doing something one shouldn't do. slang

    "I saw you take that cookie from the cookie jar! You're busted!"

  4. 4
    Extremely ugly. slang

    "She was cute, but all her friends were busted."

  5. 5
    Tired. slang
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    Broken. slang
  2. 7
    Extremely overpowered. slang

    "While not all of his matches went well, the streamer insisted aim assist was busted."

Adjective
  1. 1
    out of working order (‘busted’ is an informal substitute for ‘broken’) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
damagedstuffedaggravatedbadbankruptbeat

Example

More examples

"That big busted blonde is as dumb as a rock."

Etymology

Etymology 1

See bust (Etymology 2)

Etymology 2

From bust + -ed. See bust (Etymology 1).

Related phrases

busted drawbusted flushflat busted

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.