long in the tooth
"long-in-the-tooth" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“long in the tooth” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 17
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Old; aged.
Corpus desk
Index EN-long-in-the-tooth · long in the tooth · English
long in the tooth · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 17 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "L" 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 | long in the tooth |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “long in the tooth” in English
Rare enough to double-check
long in the tooth is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Old; aged.".
Zero misspellings are on record for long in the tooth in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: Possibly from the practice of examining the length of horses’ teeth when estimating their ages: an old horse has long, rectangular incisors, and their occlusion angle is steep. Compare don't look a gift horse in the mouth. The correct English form is long in the tooth, spelled L-O-N-G- -I-N- -T-H-E- -T-O-O-T-H.
Definition
- 1Old; aged.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how long in the tooth appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
His cousin was now of more than middle age. . . . She was lean, and yellow, and long in the tooth.
So as Microsoft began its 30th year last month, investors wondered whether it's a little long in the tooth.
Etymology
Possibly from the practice of examining the length of horses’ teeth when estimating their ages: an old horse has long, rectangular incisors, and their occlusion angle is steep. Compare don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
This word in other languages
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.