Dentist

How to spell dentist

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dentist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dentist mean?

1. nounA medical professional qualified to treat the teeth and gums.

Dentist in a sentence

• The dentist recommended a filling for the cracked molar.

• She booked an appointment with the dentist for a routine check-up.

Where does dentist come from?

Language of origin: French

The word dentist comes from the French dentiste, which was coined in the eighteenth century from the Latin dens, with its stem dentis, meaning simply 'tooth'. That same tooth root runs through a whole family of familiar English words, including 'dental', 'denture', and even 'indent', which originally described a notch cut like a row of teeth. English adopted dentist in the 1750s, and at first some writers mocked it as a fancy French import, preferring the older phrase 'tooth-drawer' for the person who pulled teeth. The ending -ist marks a person who practises a particular trade or skill, just as it does in 'artist' or 'chemist'. Because the spelling so neatly mirrors its meaning, dent plus tooth-worker, it rarely traps the writer who knows the Latin root.

How the word is built

• dent (from Latin dens, dentis: tooth)
• -ist (person who practises)