Dental

//ˈdɛn.təl// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Cleaning and polishing of an animal's teeth.
  2. 2
    a consonant articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth wordnet
  3. 3
    A dental sound.

    "'Che Normah pronounced the name in the Malay manner, metathetically: Ruperet, the final dental initiated but not exploded."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or concerning the teeth. relational

    "dental care"

  2. 2
    Of or concerning dentistry. relational
  3. 3
    Articulated with the tip of the tongue touching the upper front teeth or with the blade of the tongue touching the alveolar ridge, so that the tip of the tongue rests near the teeth.

    "dental fricative"

  4. 4
    Articulated with the tip or blade of the tongue: coronal. uncommon
Adjective
  1. 1
    of or relating to the teeth wordnet
  2. 2
    of or relating to dentistry wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
accentedallopathicalveolaralveolar consonantapicalapico-alveolar

Example

More examples

"How much will it cost to get a dental cleaning?"

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French dental or Late Latin dentālis, from dēns (“a tooth”) + -ālis (“-al”, adjectival suffix).

Related phrases

dental alveolusdental apedental calculusdental capdental caredental cariesdental clinicdental crowndental damdental drilldental enginedental floss

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.