the.com/baby teeth
Rental units for your mouth, repossessed by nature right on schedule.
means The first, temporary set of teeth that children grow, which later loosen and fall out to make way for permanent adult teeth.
from Plainly descriptive — 'baby' marking them as belonging to infancy, 'teeth' doing the rest. The more clinical name, 'deciduous teeth,' borrows from botany: 'deciduous' comes from Latin decidere, 'to fall off,' the same word used for leaves that drop in autumn. Doctors liked the image — teeth designed, like leaves, to shed on schedule and make room for what's next.
- official name
- deciduous teeth, as in they fall off like leaves
- total count
- twenty, half the adult set
- start forming
- before birth, hidden in the gums
- tooth fairy math
- turns losing a body part into a cash bonus