Etymology

tooth

T1O1O1T1H4

Today it means: A hard, calcareous structure present in the mouth of many vertebrate animals, generally used for biting and chewing food. Full definition →

Middle English toth ← Old English tōþ ← Proto-West Germanic *tanþ
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*h₃ed-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*h₃dónts
  3. Proto-Germanic*tanþs
  4. Proto-West Germanic*tanþ
  5. Old Englishtōþ
  6. Middle Englishtoth
  7. English todaytooth

From Middle English toth, tothe, tooth, from Old English tōþ, from Proto-West Germanic *tanþ, from Proto-Germanic *tanþs, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃dónts (“tooth”). Doublet of dent, dens, tind, and tine. Related to tusk. Cognates Cognate with Scots tuith (“tooth”), North Frisian Ter, teän, tosch, toske, tuis, tus, tusch, täis (“tooth”), Saterland Frisian Tusk (“tooth”), West Frisian tosk (“tooth”), Bavarian Zåhn (“tooth”), Dutch tand (“tooth”), German Zahn (“tooth”), Limburgish tandj (“tooth”), Luxembourgish Zant (“tooth”), Vilamovian cōn (“tooth”), Yiddish צאָן (tson, “tooth”), Danish and Swedish tand (“tooth”), Faroese tonn (“tooth”), Icelandic tönn (“tooth”), Norn *tann, *tant (“tooth”), Norwegian Bokmål tann (“tooth”), Norwegian Nynorsk tann, tonn (“tooth”), Breton and Welsh dant (“tooth”), Cornish dans (“tooth”), Irish déad (“tooth”), Scottish Gaelic deud (“tooth”), Asturian, Leonese, Mirandese, and Spanish diente (“tooth”), Aragonese dien (“tooth”), Catalan and French dent (“tooth”), Galician, Italian, and Portuguese dente (“tooth”), Romanian dinte (“tooth”), Latin dēns (“tooth”), Ancient Greek ὀδούς (odoús), ὀδών (odṓn, “tooth”), Lithuanian dantis (“tooth”), Belarusian дзясна́ (dzjasná, “gum”), Bulgarian and Russian десна (desna, “gum”), Czech dáseň (“gum”), Polish dziąsło (“gum”), Serbo-Croatian dȇsni (“gum”), Slovak ďasno (“gum”), Slovene dlesni (“gum”), Ukrainian я́сна (jásna, “gum”), Armenian ատամ (atam, “tooth”), Ossetian дӕндаг (dændag, “tooth”), Baluchi دنتان (dantán), دتھاں (datʰāⁿ, “tooth”), Central Kurdish ددان (ddan, “tooth”), Northern Kurdish didan, diran (“tooth”), Persian دندان (dandân, “tooth”), Sanskrit दत् (dat), दन्त (danta, “tooth”).

Words from the same roots

Proto-Germanic*tanþs all →

Proto-Indo-European*h₃dónts all →

zinctuskdentaliumdentex

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.