by God's teeth

adverb

I swear

Meanings

adverbby God's teeth (not comparable)
  1. not comparableI swear

    By God's teeth, I have been burned by this living devil so many times!

    2000, Stephen Thomas Knight, Thomas H. Ohlgren, Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, TEAMS, →ISBN, page 683
    1 more example

    By God's teeth, I will not grant them liberties which will make me a slave!

    1850, William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Carefully Collated and Compared with the Editions of Halliwell, Knight, Collier, and Others, with Historical and Critical Introductions and Notes to Each Play, and a Life of the Great Dramatist, Volume 1, Go W. Borland & Company, page 2
interjection
  1. An exclamation of surprise or amazement.

    Once free his immediate reaction was to swear angrily, 'By God's teeth! I've been disgraced. I could swear I've eaten the Devil himself!'

    1998, Thomas H. Ohlgren, Medieval Outlaws: Ten Tales in Modern English, Sutton, →ISBN, page 91

    Synonyms: God's teeth, adzooks, ay, caramba, mirabile dictu, chihuahua, begorra, bleeding heck

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

by God's teeth. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/by%20God's%20teeth

MLA

“by God's teeth.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/by%20God's%20teeth. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “by God's teeth,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/by%20God's%20teeth.

Source: by God's teeth on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.