“Long in the tooth” is an idiom referring to older people who are too experienced for a particular role. The phrase comes from the practice of examining horses’ teeth to determine their age. The phrase is often used in sports, theater, and social engagements, and can also be applied to inanimate objects. The expression “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” shares the same roots.
The expression “long in the tooth” is an idiom that refers to older people, particularly when their age makes them too experienced or too experienced for a particular thing, event, or role. When people use this phrase, they generally imply that the subject is past its prime. For example, if someone calls an actress too long in the tooth for a role, it means that the actress is too old to play her part convincingly.
origins
An idiom is basically a phrase or statement that has a figurative meaning apart from its literal translation. This expression usually has nothing to do with the physical length of a person’s teeth. Rather, the images are meant to suggest age. People today often just know this implication without understanding its origin, but as we got centuries older the connection between teeth and old age probably made more sense to the average person as horses can often age rapidly by looking at their teeth – and when horses were a commodity hot and a common mode of transportation, their aging processes and signs were often much better known.
Horses’ teeth actually tend to lengthen with age, which usually doesn’t happen in people. Additionally, their gum lines often recede until late adulthood. One way to informally measure a horse’s age is to look into its mouth and guess or measure how long its teeth are. The longer the tooth, the older it is likely to be. It was common practice for traders to examine horse teeth before formalizing a purchase to avoid buying an animal too old to do the work of pulling a cart or plowing a field, and this was a way to quickly check or verify the representation of the horse’s teeth. seller of how old the animal really was.
Use and adoption of English
There is evidence of Latin variations of the phrase dating back to the 1600s, although the first recognized example in English appeared in 1852, in a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray. That novel, The Story of Henry Esmond, used the phrase “long in the tooth” to describe a woman who has also been described as “more than middle-aged, and had no word but her own for the beauty she said she possessed.” once .”
It is entirely possible that this descriptive saying evolved independently in the English language without any reference to the Latin versions. There is a gap of years between examples of the phrase in common use, so some historians suggest that the Latin phrases fell out of fashion before being revived again in England and the English colonies at the time. The English phrase may have come about on its own in the 1800s due to how common it was then to check a horse’s teeth to determine its age.
Examples and contexts
The phrase is almost always used of people, particularly others who see themselves engaging in activities for which they may be too old. You might say, for example, “He’s getting a little too tense to dress like that”; it is also common in sports, theater, and social engagements. Basically whenever a person acts younger than he or she, the phrase makes sense: It’s like a horse that is marketed as younger and livelier than her teeth are showing.
The connotations aren’t always negative, though. People sometimes use the expression about themselves, often as a way of owning their age while displaying some degree of cunning; a statement like “I may be in my teeth for a long time, but I know what’s going on here” is just one example. While less common, the idiom can also be applied to inanimate things, such as appliances or household goods that have expired and no longer function properly, particularly if they appear fine at first glance.
Similar expressions
At least one other English idiom, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, shares the same roots as the horse dealers who examine the animals’ mouths for age and overall quality. This expression usually means that people should be grateful for the things they receive as gifts without trying too hard to examine their quality. Getting something for free is better than not having it at all, or so logic goes; examining it to make sure it is in top condition is often seen as rude or ungrateful.
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