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PlainSpell

teethe

/tiːð/verb

teethe is a verb meaning “To grow teeth” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-E-E-T-H-E and has one syllable, and it appears about once in every 98 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does teethe mean?

verb

  1. 1

    To grow teeth.

    Babies typically start teething at about six months.

  2. 2

    To bite on something to relieve discomfort caused by growing teeth.

    She'll teethe on anything that she can get into her mouth.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce teethe?

  • /tiːð/

Teethe has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-teethe.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of teethe

  • teethes present, singular, he/she/it
  • teething participle, present
  • teethed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is teethe?

Teethe appears about once in every 98 million words in written English, the 317,168th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Teethe in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense grow teeth:

LanguageWords
Frenchfaire ses dents
Germanzahnen
Spanishendentecer, echar los dientes, dentar

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does teethe come from?

From Middle English tethen, from Old English tēþan (“to teethe”), from Proto-West Germanic *tanþijan, from Proto-Germanic *tanþijaną (“to teethe”), from Proto-Germanic *tanþs (“tooth”). Cognate with German zähnen (“to provide with teeth”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).