hen's tooth
"hen-s-tooth" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hen's tooth” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Anything not naturally occurring.
Corpus desk
Index EN-hen-s-tooth · hen's tooth · English
hen's tooth · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "H" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hen's tooth |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “hen's tooth” in English
Rare enough to double-check
hen's tooth is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Anything not naturally occurring.".
hen's tooth doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: Example of a jocularly non-existent phenomenon, as many birds lack any teeth (having developed a bill instead). Compare horsefeathers and when pigs fly. The correct English form is hen's tooth, spelled H-E-N-'-S- -T-O-O-T-H.
Definition
- 1Anything not naturally occurring.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how hen's tooth appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
as rare as a hen's tooth
Indeed, many of the Dutch in Pernambuco were won over to the Church of Rome, ‘whereas converts from Catholicism to Calvinism were as rare as hens’ teeth’.
Etymology
Example of a jocularly non-existent phenomenon, as many birds lack any teeth (having developed a bill instead). Compare horsefeathers and when pigs fly.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.