edentate
Americanadjective
-
belonging or pertaining to the Edentata, an order of New World mammals characterized by the absence of incisors and canines in the arrangement of teeth and comprising the armadillos, the sloths, and the South American anteaters.
noun
noun
adjective
Etymology
Origin of edentate
First recorded in 1820–30; from Latin ēdentātus, past participle of ēdentāre “to knock the teeth out”; equivalent to ē- variant of ex- “out of” + dent- (stem of dēns ) “tooth” + -ātus past participle ending of first conjugation verbs; see origin at e- 1, tooth, -ate 1
Vocabulary lists containing edentate
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I tried to call to him to move; but how could a poor edentate like myself articulate a word?
From Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet An Autobiography by Thomas Hughes
To lose one’s spoon would be almost as serious as it is for an edentate person to lose his set of false teeth.”
From South: the story of Shackleton's 1914-1917 expedition by Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
The Glyptodon was a mailed edentate, eight feet long, resembling the little armadillo.
From The Elements of Geology by William Harmon Norton
They are however without teeth only in the front of the jaw in all, but with a few molars in some, the Indian forms however are truly edentate, having no teeth at all.
From Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon by Robert Armitage Sterndale
The palatine is small, curved anteriorly and edentate.
From The Systematics of the Frogs of the Hyla Rubra Group in Middle America by Juan R. león
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
