What does eyeteeth mean?
Eyeteeth are the pair of upper canine teeth — the pointed teeth that sit directly beneath the eyes, one on each side of the mouth. The name reflects their position just under the eye sockets, which historically led to folk associations between these teeth and vision or pain around the eyes. In contemporary English, however, the word survives almost entirely inside a single idiom: 'to cut one's eyeteeth' means to gain one's first meaningful experience in an activity or profession, echoing the way young children once 'cut teeth' when their teeth first emerged. Someone might say they cut their eyeteeth on hard news reporting or on family business negotiations, signalling hard-won early experience. Conversely, saying someone has yet to cut their eyeteeth implies they are still inexperienced. Informal but firmly established on both sides of the Atlantic, this expression gives a word with a literal, largely obsolete meaning a vivid modern afterlife.
nounThe upper canine teeth, located directly below the eyes; in modern usage the term appears almost exclusively in the idiomatic phrase 'to cut one's eyeteeth', meaning to gain experience or maturity.
- Literally: the two upper canine teeth, so named because they sit directly beneath the eyes.
- Idiomatically: 'to cut one's eyeteeth' — to acquire one's first real experience or sophistication in something.
"She cut her eyeteeth on local politics before running for national office."
"He cut his eyeteeth as a reporter covering small-town courtrooms before landing a job at the national desk."
"The dentist noted that the child's permanent eyeteeth were beginning to emerge."
Because there are two upper canines, the plural 'eyeteeth' is standard, while 'eyetooth' refers to a single tooth.
"Both of her eyeteeth required crowns after the accident."
In centuries past, cutting your eyeteeth meant you'd finally grown up — and saying someone 'hadn't cut their eyeteeth' was a polite way of calling them a naive beginner.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of eyeteeth
The name 'eyetooth' arises from the canine tooth's anatomical position directly beneath the eye. In English medical and popular usage from at least the seventeenth century, these teeth were called eyeteeth, and their eruption in infancy was famously associated with fussiness — hence the idiom 'cutting one's eyeteeth', where 'cutting teeth' refers to teething. By extension, the phrase came to mean gaining one's earliest experience or maturity. The term belongs to the same descriptive naming tradition as 'eyebrow', 'eyelid' and other body parts named for their location relative to the eye.
Related word forms
How eyeteeth is actually used
The word is almost never used today except within the phrase 'cut one's eyeteeth', which is informal but widely understood in both British and American English. The literal anatomical sense is largely obsolete in everyday conversation, surviving mainly in dental contexts and older texts.
Easily confused with eyeteeth
An eyelash is a hair on the edge of the eyelid, whereas an eyetooth (one of the eyeteeth) is a canine tooth in the upper jaw beneath the eye.