"long in the tooth" meaning in English

See long in the tooth in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Audio: en-us-long in the tooth.ogg [US], en-au-long in the tooth.ogg [Australia]
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. Etymology templates: {{m|en|don't look a gift horse in the mouth}} don't look a gift horse in the mouth Head templates: {{head|en|adjective}} long in the tooth
  1. (idiomatic) Old; aged. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: on in years, over the hill, wizened, elderly Related terms: don't look a gift horse in the mouth, make old bones Translations (old, aged): vell (Catalan), vanha (Finnish), iäkäs (Finnish), vanhanaikainen (Finnish), blanchir sous le harnais (French), défraîchi (French), alt (German), in die Jahre gekommen (German), sbiadito (Italian), antiquato (Italian), in là con gli anni (Italian), stary (Polish), antiquado (Portuguese), ultrapassado (Portuguese), velhote [person] (Portuguese), velhusco [person] (Portuguese), entradote [Portugal, colloquial] (Portuguese), ста́рый (stáryj) (Russian), пожило́й (požilój) [humorous] (Russian), песо́к сыплется (pesók sypletsja) [colloquial] (Russian), rancio (Spanish), ajado (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-long_in_the_tooth-en-adj-QDMyBE7h Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for long in the tooth meaning in English (4.6kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "don't look a gift horse in the mouth"
      },
      "expansion": "don't look a gift horse in the mouth",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "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.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
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        "2": "adjective"
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      "expansion": "long in the tooth",
      "name": "head"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1852, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in The History of Henry Esmond, Esq.",
          "text": "His cousin was now of more than middle age. . . . She was lean, and yellow, and long in the tooth.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004 May 10, Chris Taylor, “Is Microsoft A Slowpoke?”, in Time, archived from the original on 2008-04-06",
          "text": "So as Microsoft began its 30th year last month, investors wondered whether it's a little long in the tooth.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 March 13, Drachinifel, 10:25 from the start, in The Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron - Voyage of the Damned, archived from the original on 2022-12-16",
          "text": "There were four relatively-fast, modern cruisers, the Oleg, Aurora, Zhemchug, and Izumrud... aaand the Dmitrii Donskoi, which was twenty-one years old and getting a bit long in the tooth.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Old; aged."
      ],
      "id": "en-long_in_the_tooth-en-adj-QDMyBE7h",
      "links": [
        [
          "Old",
          "old"
        ],
        [
          "aged",
          "aged"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Old; aged."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "don't look a gift horse in the mouth"
        },
        {
          "word": "make old bones"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "on in years"
        },
        {
          "word": "over the hill"
        },
        {
          "word": "wizened"
        },
        {
          "word": "elderly"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "ca",
          "lang": "Catalan",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "vell"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "vanha"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "iäkäs"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "vanhanaikainen"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "blanchir sous le harnais"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "défraîchi"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "alt"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "in die Jahre gekommen"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "sbiadito"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "antiquato"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "in là con gli anni"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "stary"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "antiquado"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "ultrapassado"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "tags": [
            "person"
          ],
          "word": "velhote"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "tags": [
            "person"
          ],
          "word": "velhusco"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "tags": [
            "Portugal",
            "colloquial"
          ],
          "word": "entradote"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "stáryj",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "ста́рый"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "požilój",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "tags": [
            "humorous"
          ],
          "word": "пожило́й"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "pesók sypletsja",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "tags": [
            "colloquial"
          ],
          "word": "песо́к сыплется"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "rancio"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "old, aged",
          "word": "ajado"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-us-long in the tooth.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e1/En-us-long_in_the_tooth.ogg/En-us-long_in_the_tooth.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/En-us-long_in_the_tooth.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (US)"
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-au-long in the tooth.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/27/En-au-long_in_the_tooth.ogg/En-au-long_in_the_tooth.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/En-au-long_in_the_tooth.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "long in the tooth"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "don't look a gift horse in the mouth"
      },
      "expansion": "don't look a gift horse in the mouth",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "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.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "adjective"
      },
      "expansion": "long in the tooth",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "don't look a gift horse in the mouth"
    },
    {
      "word": "make old bones"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English adjectives",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1852, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in The History of Henry Esmond, Esq.",
          "text": "His cousin was now of more than middle age. . . . She was lean, and yellow, and long in the tooth.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004 May 10, Chris Taylor, “Is Microsoft A Slowpoke?”, in Time, archived from the original on 2008-04-06",
          "text": "So as Microsoft began its 30th year last month, investors wondered whether it's a little long in the tooth.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 March 13, Drachinifel, 10:25 from the start, in The Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron - Voyage of the Damned, archived from the original on 2022-12-16",
          "text": "There were four relatively-fast, modern cruisers, the Oleg, Aurora, Zhemchug, and Izumrud... aaand the Dmitrii Donskoi, which was twenty-one years old and getting a bit long in the tooth.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Old; aged."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Old",
          "old"
        ],
        [
          "aged",
          "aged"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Old; aged."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-us-long in the tooth.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e1/En-us-long_in_the_tooth.ogg/En-us-long_in_the_tooth.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/En-us-long_in_the_tooth.ogg",
      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (US)"
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-au-long in the tooth.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/27/En-au-long_in_the_tooth.ogg/En-au-long_in_the_tooth.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/En-au-long_in_the_tooth.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "on in years"
    },
    {
      "word": "over the hill"
    },
    {
      "word": "wizened"
    },
    {
      "word": "elderly"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "ca",
      "lang": "Catalan",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "vell"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "vanha"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "iäkäs"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "vanhanaikainen"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "blanchir sous le harnais"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "défraîchi"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "alt"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "in die Jahre gekommen"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "sbiadito"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "antiquato"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "in là con gli anni"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "stary"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "antiquado"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "ultrapassado"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "tags": [
        "person"
      ],
      "word": "velhote"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "tags": [
        "person"
      ],
      "word": "velhusco"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "tags": [
        "Portugal",
        "colloquial"
      ],
      "word": "entradote"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "stáryj",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "ста́рый"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "požilój",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "tags": [
        "humorous"
      ],
      "word": "пожило́й"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "pesók sypletsja",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ],
      "word": "песо́к сыплется"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "rancio"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "old, aged",
      "word": "ajado"
    }
  ],
  "word": "long in the tooth"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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