[f. FORE- pref. + TOOTH.]
1. One of the front teeth, rare in sing.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 157. Praecisores, foreteð.
a. 1400[?]. Morte Arth., 1088.
| Fflatt-mowthede as a fluke, with fleryande lyppys, | |
| And þe flesche in his fortethe fowly as a bere. |
c. 1440. Bone Flor., 1608.
| On the mowthe sche hym hyt, | |
| That hys for tethe owte he spytt. |
1581. Lambarde, Eirenarcha, IV. iv. (1588), 425 By … beating out his foreteeth.
1661. Pepys, Diary, 8 May. At night comes my wife not well, from my father’s, having had a foretooth drawn out to-day, which do trouble me.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (1781) V. xxi. 121. Our Aunt Nell has lost two more of her upper fore-teeth.
1834. Landor, Imag. Conv., Wks. 1846, II. 240/1. He averred most solemnly that no man ever had complained to him of murder, excepting one who had lost so many fore-teeth by a cudgel that his deposition could not be taken exactly.
† 2. Only in pl. The first or milk-teeth. Obs.
1601. Holland, Pliny, VII. xvi. 164. Children breed their fore-teeth in the seventh moneth after they are borne.
1651. Wittie, trans. Primrose’s Pop. Err., III. 187. Nature doth then give unto children their foreteeth, when they have need of solid meat.
