n., pl., teeth (tēth).
- One of a set of hard, bonelike structures rooted in sockets in the jaws of vertebrates, typically composed of a core of soft pulp surrounded by a layer of hard dentin that is coated with cementum or enamel at the crown and used for biting or chewing food or as a means of attack or defense.
- A similar structure in invertebrates, such as one of the pointed denticles or ridges on the exoskeleton of an arthropod or the shell of a mollusk.
- A projecting part resembling a tooth in shape or function, as on a comb, gear, or saw.
- A small, notched projection along a margin, especially of a leaf. Also called dent.
- A rough surface, as of paper or metal.
- Something that injures or destroys with force. Often used in the plural: the teeth of the blizzard.
- teeth Effective means of enforcement; muscle: "This . . . puts real teeth into something where there has been only lip service" (Ellen Convisser).
- Taste or appetite: She always had a sweet tooth.
v., toothed, tooth·ing, tooths. (tūth, tūTH) v.tr.
- To furnish (a tool, for example) with teeth.
- To make a jagged edge on.
To become interlocked; mesh.
idioms:
get (or sink) (one's) teeth into Slang.
- To be actively involved in; get a firm grasp of.
- To express a readiness to fight; threaten defiantly.
- Lacking nothing; completely: armed to the teeth; dressed to the teeth.
[Middle English, from Old English tōth.]
WORD HISTORY Eating, biting, teeth, and dentists are related not only logically but etymologically; that is, the roots of the words eat, tooth, and dentist have a common origin. The Proto-Indo-European root *ed-, meaning "to eat" and the source of our word eat, originally meant "to bite." A participial form of *ed- in this sense was *dent-, "biting," which came to mean "tooth." Our word tooth comes from *dont-, a form of *dent-, with sound changes that resulted in the Germanic word *tanthuz. This word became Old English tōth and Modern English tooth. Meanwhile the Proto-Indo-European form *dent- itself became in Latin dēns (stem dent-), "tooth," from which is derived our word dentist. We find a descendant of another Proto-Indo-European form *(o)dont- in the word orthodontist.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
