Significatio vocis dens | Babel Free

Definitiones

1. a tooth
   declension-3
2. a tooth, point, spike, prong, tine, fluke, or any tooth-like projection
   declension-3, metonymically
3. tooth of envy, envy, ill will
   declension-3, figuratively
4. tooth of a destroying power
   declension-3, figuratively

Aequivalentia

Exempla

“nec procul ā stabulīs audet discēdere, sīquā”

Nor [does a] lamb dare to withdraw far from the sheep-folds, if it was ever torn from the teeth of a hungry wolf. (The flexibility of Latin word order allows Ovid to heighten tension by enjoining the words for lamb and wolf. Translations vary; was the lamb ever torn “by the teeth” of a wolf, or did a shepherd once rescue the lamb “from the teeth” of a wolf?)

“prō dentibus gladiōs habent”

They have swords for teeth.

“nam quid in oppressū validō dūrābit eōrum, ut mortem effugiat, lēti sub dentibus ipsīs? ignis an ūmor an aura? quid hōrum? sanguen an ossa?”

For which of them will last—and escape death—under the strong pressure, under the very teeth of annihilation? The fire, or the moisture, or the air? Which of these? The blood, or the bones?

“Tempus edāx rērum, tūque, invidiōsa vetustās, omnia dēstruitis, vitiātaque dentibus aevī paulātim lentā cōnsūmitis omnia morte.”

O Time, devourer of all things, and you, jealous Old Age, you destroy everything; and, through the teeth of time, and a slow, tainted death, little by little, you consume everything.

“Excēpit Seleucus fābulae partem et “Egō̆” inquit “nōn cō̆tīdiē lavor; baliscus enim fullō est, aqua dentēs habet, et cor nostrum cō̆tīdiē liquēscit.[”]”

Seleucus took up part of the tale and "I", he said, "do not wash every day; for the bath is a fuller, the water has teeth, and our heart melts away daily."

Gradus CEFR