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tooth

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

5 characters

Language

English

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "tooth", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "tooth" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "tooth" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

tooth is aEnglishnoun. It means: A hard, calcareous structure present in the mouth of many vertebrate animals, generally used for biting and chewing food. Pronounced /tuːθ/. It ranks #6,305 in English word frequency. Often confused with tot and tote.

Key facts for tooth
PropertyValue
Headwordtooth
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/tuːθ/
Letters5
Frequency rank#6,305
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of tooth in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for tooth is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /tuːθ/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,305 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for tooth, with forms such as "ototh", "tooht", and "toothh". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "tot", "tote", "trot", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English tothe, toth, tooth, from Old English tōþ (“tooth”), from Proto-West Germanic *tanþ (“tooth”), from Proto-Germanic *tanþs (“tooth”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃dónts (“tooth”). Related to tusk. Doublet of dent, dens, tind, and tine. Cogn… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is tooth, spelled T-O-O-T-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A hard, calcareous structure present in the mouth of many vertebrate animals, generally used for biting and chewing food.
  2. 2
    A sharp projection on the blade of a saw or similar implement.
  3. 3
    A projection on the edge of a gear that meshes with similar projections on adjacent gears, or on the circumference of a cog that engages with a chain.
  4. 4
    Of a rope, the stickiness when in contact with another rope as in a knot.
  5. 5
    A projection or point in other parts of the body resembling the tooth of a vertebrate animal.
  6. 6
    A pointed projection from the margin of a leaf.
  7. 7
    The rough surface of some kinds of cel or other films that allows better adhesion of artwork.
  8. 8
    Liking, fondness (compare toothsome).
  9. 9
    An irreducible component of a comb that intersects the handle in exactly one point, that point being distinct from the unique point of intersection for any other tooth of the comb.

Etymology

From Middle English tothe, toth, tooth, from Old English tōþ (“tooth”), from Proto-West Germanic *tanþ (“tooth”), from Proto-Germanic *tanþs (“tooth”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃dónts (“tooth”). Related to tusk. Doublet of dent, dens, tind, and tine. 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”).

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ototh,tooht,toothh,tootth,totoh,ttooth

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for tooth

Misspelling Variants of "tooth"

ototh5tooht5toothh6tootth6totoh5ttooth6
Misspelling Variants of "tooth"

Frequency rank: #6,305 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "tooth"?
"tooth" is spelled T-O-O-T-H. The IPA pronunciation is /tuːθ/.
What does "tooth" mean?
As a noun, "tooth" means: A hard, calcareous structure present in the mouth of many vertebrate animals, generally used for biting and chewing food.
What words are commonly confused with "tooth"?
"tooth" is commonly confused with "tot", "tote", "trot". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "tooth"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "tooth" is /tuːθ/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "tooth"?
From Middle English tothe, toth, tooth, from Old English tōþ (“tooth”), from Proto-West Germanic *tanþ (“tooth”), from Proto-Germanic *tanþs (“tooth”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃dónts (“tooth”). Related to tusk. Doublet of dent, dens, tind, and ... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.