or bust

Also found in: Idioms.

or collapse from the effort; - used in phrases expressing determination to do something; as, Oregon or bust, meaning "We will get to Oregon or die trying."

See also: bust

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by G. & C. Merriam Co.

References in classic literature ?

By and by I says to myself, I can't live this way; I'm a-going to find out who it is that's here on the island with me; I'll find it out or bust. Well, I felt better right off.

View in context

The piecing of the bust in three separately carved sections--circular socle, name plate and the bust proper, all of which are of the same marble type--differs from the early-modern technique, in which the socle and name plate or bust and plate are regularly carved as one.

Emperor in the arena: experts have for many years battled over the date of a bust of the Emperor Commodus in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Is it Roman, renaissance or neoclassical? And why is it so hard to tell? Carolyn Miner and Jens Daehner discuss the lessons of a remarkable portrait