dental

Pluraldentals

1. 1
   adjective

   Relating to or involving the teeth.

   Fluoride in the water supply has improved dental health in many towns.

   Heavy dental wear on the skull suggests the animal chewed tough plants all its life.

   Note

   The everyday adjective for teeth came into English from Middle French dental or Late Latin dentālis, built on dēns, "a tooth". It classifies rather than describes: it sits before a noun, as in dental care, dental health or dental wear, and is seldom used after a verb or with very.

2. 2
   adjective

   Relating to dentistry or to the work of dentists.

   She graduated from dental school last spring and joined a practice downtown.

   Many dental clinics now take digital X-rays instead of using film.

   Note

   Here the word points to the profession rather than the body part: dental school, a dental assistant and a dental clinic all belong to dentistry. Many phrases sit between the two, since a dental checkup involves both the teeth themselves and the dentist who examines them.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   In veterinary medicine, a cleaning and polishing of an animal's teeth.

   The vet recommended a dental for our older cat because of the tartar on her back teeth.

   The practice schedules its dentals early so the animals have the afternoon to recover.

   Note

   In veterinary clinics the word is shorthand for the whole procedure: an older cat goes in for a dental, and a busy practice books several dentals in one morning. It is countable and takes a, unlike the adjective it comes from; prophy is another name for the same cleaning.

4. 4
   adjective

   Pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the upper front teeth, or with the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge so that the tip rests near the teeth.

   English has two dental fricatives, the sounds at the start of "thin" and "then."

   Many languages of India keep dental and retroflex consonants apart as separate sounds.

   Note

   Phoneticians use the word for a place of articulation just in front of the alveolar ridge. English t and d are alveolar, made on the ridge, while the th of thin and then is dental. In transcription a small bridge under the letter, as in t̪ and d̪, marks the dental version so the two places can be told apart.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A speech sound made with the tongue touching or close to the upper front teeth.

   In Hindi, a dental and a retroflex consonant can be the only difference between two words.

   English speakers learning Spanish often pronounce its dentals too far back in the mouth.

   Note

   Phoneticians name sounds by where they are made, so the adjective doubles as a noun alongside labial and velar: a language's dentals, a word's final dental. Anthony Burgess, in The Enemy in the Blanket (1958), hears Rupert said in the Malay manner as Ruperet, its final dental initiated but not exploded: the tongue reaches the teeth for the t but never releases it.

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