[tooth] 
,noun, plural teeth, verb, toothed [tootht, tooth
d] , tooth⋅ing [too-thing, -thing] .| 1. | (in most vertebrates) one of the hard bodies or processes usually attached in a row to each jaw, serving for the prehension and mastication of food, as weapons of attack or defense, etc., and in mammals typically composed chiefly of dentin surrounding a sensitive pulp and covered on the crown with enamel. |
| 2. | (in invertebrates) any of various similar or analogous processes occurring in the mouth or alimentary canal, or on a shell. |
| 3. | any projection resembling or suggesting a tooth. |
| 4. | one of the projections of a comb, rake, saw, etc. |
| 5. | Machinery.
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| 6. | Botany.
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| 7. | a sharp, distressing, or destructive attribute or agency. |
| 8. | taste, relish, or liking. |
| 9. | a surface, as on a grinding wheel or sharpening stone, slightly roughened so as to increase friction with another part. |
| 10. | a rough surface created on a paper made for charcoal drawing, watercolor, or the like, or on canvas for oil painting. |
| 11. | to furnish with teeth. |
| 12. | to cut teeth upon. |
| 13. | to interlock, as cogwheels. |
| 14. | by the skin of one's teeth, barely: He got away by the skin of his teeth. |
| 15. | cast or throw in someone's teeth, to reproach someone for (an action): History will ever throw this blunder in his teeth. |
| 16. | cut one's teeth on, to do at the beginning of one's education, career, etc., or in one's youth: The hunter boasted of having cut his teeth on tigers. |
| 17. | in the teeth of,
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| 18. | long in the tooth, old; elderly. |
| 19. | put teeth in or into, to establish or increase the effectiveness of: to put teeth into the law. |
| 20. | set one's teeth, to become resolute; prepare for difficulty: He set his teeth and separated the combatants. |
| 21. | set or put one's teeth on edge,
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| 22. | show one's teeth, to become hostile or threatening; exhibit anger: Usually friendly, she suddenly began to show her teeth. |
| 23. | to the teeth, entirely; fully: armed to the teeth; dressed to the teeth in furs. |
n), Skt dántatooth (tōōth)  (click for larger image in new window) n. pl. teeth (tēth)
v. tr.
To become interlocked; mesh. [Middle English, from Old English tōth; see dent- in Indo-European roots.] 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. |
tooth (t&oomacr;th)
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 cement or enamel at the crown and used chiefly for biting or chewing food or as a means of attack or defense.
tooth (t th) Pronunciation Key
(click for larger image in new window) Plural teeth (tēth)
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Tooth
one of the particulars regarding which retaliatory punishment was to be inflicted (Ex. 21:24; Lev. 24:20; Deut. 19:21). "Gnashing of teeth" =rage, despair (Matt. 8:12; Acts 7:54); "cleanness of teeth" =famine (Amos 4:6); "children's teeth set on edge" =children suffering for the sins of their fathers (Ezek. 18:2).
tooth
In addition to the idiom beginning with tooth, also see fight tooth and nail; fine-tooth comb; long in the tooth; sweet tooth. Also see under teeth.