: one of the hard bony appendages that are borne on the jaws or in many of the lower vertebrates on other bones in the walls of the mouth or pharynx and serve especially for the prehension and mastication of food and as weapons of offense and defense
b
: any of various usually hard and sharp processes especially about the mouth of an invertebrate
2
: a projection resembling or suggesting the tooth of an animal in shape, arrangement, or action
a saw tooth
: such as
a
: any of the regular projections on the circumference or sometimes the face of a wheel that engage with corresponding projections on another wheel especially to transmit force : cog
b
: a small sharp-pointed marginal lobe or process on a plant
3
a
teeth plural: effective means of enforcement
drug laws with teeth
b
: something that injures, tortures, devours, or destroys
C dentition of adult human (upper) D dentition of adult human (lower)
1 incisors
2 canines
3 bicuspids
4 molars
Examples of tooth in a Sentence
The dentist will have to pull that tooth.
You should brush your teeth every morning and night.
She clenched her teeth in anger.
He has a set of false teeth.
the teeth of a saw
The labor union showed that it has teeth.
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The color is red velvet; the sound brims with sickly pulses and crocodile-teeth percussion; the playwright is a cross between Charlie Kaufman and Muse.—
Kieran Press-Reynolds,
Pitchfork,
29 Oct. 2026 Most are somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a fist, and their only real feature is a malevolent-looking mouth armed with five overlapping teeth for grinding and shearing kelp.—
Joseph Ogilvy,
Condé Nast Traveler,
28 Oct. 2026 These were extraordinary, the shrimp steamed until the meat, lightly perfumed with ginger, snapped under the tooth, and the pleated wrapper held the right amount of chew.—
Christopher Solomon,
Travel + Leisure,
28 Oct. 2026 But important clues about how the sickness operates are emerging from the latest studies of bacterial DNA in ancient bones and teeth.—
Faye Flam,
Scientific American,
27 Oct. 2026 See All Example Sentences for tooth
Word History
Etymology
Middle English, from Old English tōth; akin to Old High German zand tooth, Latin dent-, dens, Greek odont-, odous
First Known Use
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a
Time Traveler
The first known use of tooth was
before the 12th century
: any of the hard bony appendages that are borne on the jaws and serve especially for the prehension and mastication of food see milk tooth, permanent tooth
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