tooth
pronunciation
How to pronounce tooth in British English:
UK [tuːθ]
How to pronounce tooth in American English:
US [tuːθ]
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- Noun:
- hard bonelike structures in the jaws of vertebrates; used for biting and chewing or for attack and defense
- something resembling the tooth of an animal
- toothlike structure in invertebrates found in the mouth or alimentary canal or on a shell
- a means of enforcement
- one of a number of uniform projections on a gear
Word Origin
- tooth
- tooth: [OE] Etymologically, a tooth is an ‘eater’. Its ultimate source is the prehistoric Indo- European base *ed- ‘eat’, which also lies behind English eat and edible. From this was formed the noun *dont-, *dent- ‘tooth’, whose descendants include Latin dēns ‘tooth’ (source of English dentist, indent, trident [16], etc), Greek odón ‘tooth’, (source of English odontology [19]), Welsh dant ‘tooth’, and prehistoric Germanic *tanthuz. This evolved into German zahn, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish tand, and English tooth. A variant of *tanthuz may lie behind English tusk.=> dentist, eat, edible, indent, odontology, trident, tusk
- tooth (n.)
- Old English toð (plural teð), from Proto-Germanic *tan-thuz (cognates: Old Saxon, Danish, Swedish, Dutch tand, Old Norse tönn, Old Frisian toth, Old High German zand, German Zahn, Gothic tunþus), from PIE *dent- "tooth" (cognates: Sanskrit danta, Greek odontos, Latin dens, Lithuanian dantis, Old Irish det, Welsh dent). Plural form teeth is an instance of i-mutation. Application to tooth-like parts of other objects (saws, combs, etc.) first recorded 1520s. Tooth and nail as weapons is from 1530s. The tooth-fairy is attested from 1964.
Example
- 1. Avoid sugars and starches that can cause tooth decay .
- 2. Capitalism red in tooth and claw never seemed to appeal to reinhard mohn .
- 3. Some ammonite fossils have tooth marks that look as though they were made by huge reptilian predators called mosasaurs .
- 4. Someone who gets tooth stains may want a whitening toothpaste .
- 5. This constant beverage use increases the risk of tooth decay .