precocious dentition
- noun
- /prɪˈkoʊʃ dɛnˈtɪʃən/
- Specialized
- Parents were surprised when their child showed signs of precocious dentition at only three months old.
Examples
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At her six-month check-up, the doctor remarked on the child's precocious dentition compared to most babies.
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Her son showed signs of precocious dentition at just six months old.
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Cases of precocious dentition can indicate underlying medical conditions in newborns.
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The pediatrician noted precocious dentition in the infant during the examination.
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Many parents worry about precocious dentition in their toddlers.
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The pediatrician explained that precocious dentition could be a sign of early development in infants.
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Many specialists are concerned about cases of precocious dentition because it may indicate health issues.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Both constituents are semantically clear and their combination follows a straightforward adjective + noun composition: 'precocious' (early/advanced for age) applied to 'dentition' (the process of teeth eruption) yields 'early eruption of teeth.' This pattern is cross-linguistically common and would be directly derivable by a B1 learner who knows both words.
Etymology
Precocious dentition paints a clear image: precocious means 'early' and dentition means 'teeth', so it describes teeth appearing sooner than usual in a baby.