'tank-buster' originates from English, specifically the compound of 'tank' + 'buster', where 'tank' (in the military sense) refers to the armored vehicle (the word 'tank' itself was applied to the vehicle in WWI) and 'buster' derives from 'bust' meaning 'to break' with the agentive suffix '-er'.

'tank-buster' developed in the 20th century as a compound; 'tank' (originally meaning a large container) was repurposed as a cover name for the armored vehicle in WWI and later came to mean the vehicle itself, while 'buster' comes from earlier English 'bust'/'burst' senses and the suffix '-er' forming agent nouns.

Initially a literal compound meaning 'something that breaks tanks', it has come to denote specific anti-tank weapons, munitions, or platforms and is also used informally as a verb/adjective.