Meaning & use
long-toothed
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Meanings
adjectivenot comparabletechnical
Having long teeth, especially as a typical feature of a kind of animal.
Grammar: Used before a noun: a long-toothed predator. It has no comparative form.
Patterns
- a long-toothed animal
- a long-toothed species
The museum displays a long-toothed skull found in the desert.
These long-toothed fish hunt smaller fish near the reef.
adjectivenot comparablebiologyspecialist
In biology, describing a group of animals whose teeth are especially long compared with related groups.
Grammar: Comes before the noun and often names a group: long-toothed whales.
Patterns
- long-toothed whales
- long-toothed cats
Long-toothed whales use their teeth to catch slippery prey.
Researchers compared long-toothed and short-toothed species in the same family.
Common combinations
- long-toothed cat
- A long-toothed cat once lived in these forests.
- long-toothed whale
- The long-toothed whale feeds mainly at night.
- long-toothed skull
- They uncovered a long-toothed skull in the cave.
- long-toothed predator
- This long-toothed predator relied on speed, not strength.
Synonyms and how they differ
- sharp-toothed
- Describes teeth that cut easily rather than teeth that are long; use it when the point is biting power.
- big-toothed
- Talks about overall size of the teeth, not their length, so it fits a wide grin better.
Opposites
Word family
- toothed adjective
- Having teeth, often of a stated kind: a saw-toothed leaf.
- tooth noun
- One of the hard white parts in the mouth used for biting.
- toothless adjective
- Having no teeth.
Commonly confused: long-toothed or long in the tooth?
long-toothed vs long in the tooth
An idiom meaning old, usually about people or horses. It is not the same as long-toothed, which describes actual teeth.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'long-toothed' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Long-toothed' is an adjective that goes before a noun, as in 'a long-toothed fish'. Option A wrongly adds a comparative, option C uses it as a verb, and option D uses it as a noun.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “long-toothed”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.