Skip to main content
toothpick

toothpick

56 1.0
A small thin stick to remove food from between the teeth
  • noun
  • /ˈtuːθˌpɪk/
translation icon : palillo de dientes
  • After the meal, she picked up a toothpick to remove food stuck between her teeth.

Just a girl ready to like pinch an hors d'oeuvre with a toothpick.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • Palermo, take that toothpick out of your mouth.

  • And then your children can try and make the constellations out of the toothpicks and mini marshmallows.

  • Let me get a toothpick.

  • Then you can use a toothpick to smooth out all the little gaps.

  • Manny takes a toothpick out of his pocket and sticks it in his mouth.

    Fiction book (1996)
  • Use a toothpick and, starting at the top, drag the toothpick vertically through horizontal lines.

    Blog text (19)
  • Manny smiles and sticks a fresh toothpick in his mouth.

    Fiction book (1996)
  • When you pull that toothpick out, you should only have a few moist crumbs.

  • And we'll try to bring some of these into a recitation for people who want to have gum drops and toothpicks for making models.

  • We took some little fancy toothpicks and stuck a lychee in there and how cute to garnish them.

Synonyms

pick
vstoothpick
8 6.2

A thin sharp tool used to remove small bits of dirt

is used for food stuck between teeth rather than general debris removal
nutpick
vstoothpick
6.8

A small pointed tool for removing a nut from its shell

removes food trapped between teeth using a thin stick

Compounds

A mild, playful word people use instead of saying hell

How Big

ladle
18 2.1
spatula
36 1.5
utensil
41 1.3
fork
178 1.0
teaspoon
33 1.0
toothpick
56 1.0

Surface Forms

toothpick singular
toothpicks plural

Morphology

toothpick = tooth + pick (transparent) = tooth + pick

A straightforward compound of 'tooth' + 'pick' whose meaning (a small pick for the teeth) is directly derived from its parts.

Etymology

Toothpick comes from the simple parts tooth and pick, where pick means 'to pull out' or 'remove'. So a toothpick is a small stick used to take bits of food out from between your teeth.