false teeth
6
2.3
- noun
- /fɔls tiθ/
:
dentadura postiza
- I'm thinking, you know, about the first job I ever really got was when Mama, my grandma, see, she's the one who clacked her false teeth to the radio all day.
- wearing false teeth
- set of false teeth
- took out her false teeth
Examples
-
Somehow her false teeth came out, the car moved forward a little, and a tire passed over her dentures.
Fiction book (1990) -
"I'm looking for some false teeth."
Fiction book (1999) -
Still, false teeth can be better looking than the real thing sometimes.
-
Watching her pop out her false teeth.
Fiction book (1990) -
Some of the corpses they had found had false teeth made out of wood.
-
Then she popped the false teeth back in.
Fiction book (1994) -
It is advised to remove your dentures or false teeth before the movie begins.
-
The people here, 97 percent of them, have false teeth, and management serves corn on the cob.
Fiction book (2001) -
Alma always cut the corn off the cob because of Merritt's false teeth.
Fiction book (1993) -
I always remove my false teeth before going to bed to keep them clean.
Synonyms
37
7.9
A removable set of false teeth that fits in the mouth
23
5.5
A set of false teeth that a person can take out and put in
15
4.6
An artificial device that replaces a missing body part such as a leg
2
8.4
A set of artificial teeth held by real teeth on both sides of a gap
1
8.8
A removable set of false teeth that replaces some missing teeth
A removable dental device that replaces one or more missing teeth
How Permanent
Surface Forms
Morphology
The adjective 'false' (imitation/not real) combined with the noun 'teeth' yields a directly compositional meaning of 'imitation/artificial teeth' that a B1 learner who knows both words can infer. This is a common adjective+noun pattern found across many languages (e.g., Spanish 'dientes postizos', French 'dents postiches'), so the meaning is transparent and predictable.
Etymology
False teeth comes from the simple idea of putting false, meaning not real, teeth made of bone, ivory, or later metal and plastic into the mouth when someone lost their own teeth. People often took them out and put them in a glass of water, so the phrase now means 'artificial teeth' used to replace missing natural ones.