toothless

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English

Etymology

From Middle English totheles, toþeles, from Old English tōþlēas, from Proto-Germanic *tanþlausaz (“toothless”), equivalent to tooth +‎ -less. Cognate with Dutch tandeloos (“toothless”), German Low German tannlos (“toothless”), German zahnlos (“toothless”), Danish tandløs (“toothless”), Swedish tandlös (“toothless”), Icelandic tannlaus (“toothless”).

Pronunciation

Adjective

toothless (comparative more toothless, superlative most toothless)

  1. Having no teeth.
    a toothless old man
    • 1983 December 24, Andrea Loewenstein, “"What's Freedom Without Food In Your Stomach?" -- A Trip to Haiti”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 23, page 8:
      She goes on to explain the difficulty she's having getting visas for Lawrence and for Robert, the 14-year-old who is her older brother and is, amazingly, the last child of the toothless tiny woman who buzzes around us. (I find out later that she is only in her mid-fifties.)
  2. (figuratively) Weak; having no ability to enforce something.
    The treaty was toothless because of the lack of participation from the undersigned.
    • 1603, Ben Jonson, The Entertainment at Althorp:
      Not tell? ha! ha! I could smile / At this old and toothless wile.
    • 2021 October 10, Caroline Anders, “A TikTok bone salesman’s wall of spines reignites ethical debate over selling human remains”, in The Washington Post‎:
      Bans of the sale of human remains across platforms like Facebook, Etsy, Instagram and eBay are toothless and poorly enforced, Huffer said. And when a page does get shut down, he said, it just pops up on a different website.

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