tooth
- noun
- /tuːθ/
- Specialized
- The clock mechanism has small teeth that help it keep accurate time.
- gear tooth
- tooth of a comb
- cut a tooth
My next tip is use a wide tooth comb.
- My next tip is use a wide tooth comb.
- Could be cameras or the teeth of handcuffs closing to fix the arms overhead.
- I'll use a kind of silicon teeth massagey thing.
Examples
-
The saw's teeth are sharp and can easily cut through wood.
-
The Brotherhood fought tooth and nail against postponing elections, which would give other parties time to organize.
Academic text (2011) -
You push down on the spring, disengage the teeth like that.
-
And this goes just like teeth on the gear and the other, the flat end on the bearings.
-
Okay, when are you gonna furnish me with the particulars, because an estate agent needs something he can sink his teeth into.
-
In the distance, mountains were pushed up, jagged white teeth from broken white gums.
Fiction book (1990) -
A gear's teeth interlock with another gear to transmit motion.
Synonyms
A tooth-shaped point on a saw blade that helps it cut wood
An edge with small tooth-like notches, like on a knife or leaf
Idioms
To punish someone in the same way they hurt another person
Compounds
- Baby Talk
An imaginary person who takes a child's lost baby tooth and leaves money under the pillow
- Specialized
Damage to a tooth's hard surface caused by bacteria that often makes a hole
- Specialized
A child's baby tooth that falls out and is replaced by an adult tooth
- Specialized
A tooth that cannot come through the gum because other teeth block it
- Specialized
A large sharp tooth in meat-eating mammals for cutting meat from bone
- Specialized
A nerve disease that runs in families and makes the muscles of the hands and lower legs weak and thin
- Specialized
A small plant that grows in woods and makes pretty spring flowers and is grown in gardens
- Specialized
A tree from eastern North America with large leaves that have rough edges and light bark
- Specialized
A small surgical tool that has tiny teeth at the tips and holds delicate body tissue
- Specialized
A sea animal that has a long thin shell open at both ends and a foot for digging in sand
A North American spring flower with white petals and a yellow center
How Pointed
Surface Forms
Etymology
Tooth kept its meaning of a hard point and was used for parts of tools and machines that look or work like a tooth, so a gear or saw has 'teeth' because each little projection fits with others like real teeth do.