We often use expressions and names in daily life and hardly ever give a thought as to why things are named a certain way. One of those names is “wisdom teeth“. Is it because they make us wise to the fact that anyone can get a toothache when they least expect it?

Etymology, defined as the study of the history of words, gives us the answer to our question. Why are wisdom teeth called wisdom teeth?

In very early references in the 1600′s the painful molars are already called “teeth of wisdom“. This probably comes from the Latin “dentes sapientiæ”. From the 1850’s the name “wisdom teeth” is more common in the English speaking world.

One explanation about how wisdom got mixed up with growing teeth is the Dutch expression of  “verstandskies“. This may originally come from the word “ver-staand” or far-standing, referring to the often odd angles, in which wisdom teeth grow. A mistranslation might have made it into “verstand” or “wisdom” in error.

Another theory for the name is the fact that wisdom teeth usually appear so much later than all other teeth. Most people experience the growth of wisdom teeth in their late teens or early twenties. The name may refer to the fact that we are older and wiser when wisdom teeth make their appearance. In the Spanish language the term is also related to wisdom as molar of judgment or muela de juicio. This again refers to the greater amount of judgment a young adult has compared to a child.

Other languages often also refer to the lateness of the arrival of the teeth such as 20 yaş dişi or 20th year teeth in Turkish or the particularly poetic gigi bungsu in Indonesian meaning literally youngest child and referring to the most recent addition to the tooth family.

Whilst the root of the word is very interesting, the actual experience of having wisdom teeth out is less so. Most people’s eyes will glaze over at the mere memory of the pain they suffered when they had to make the trip to the dentist to have theirs out.

Spare a thought for our forefathers, who named the wisdom tooth – they had to have theirs extracted without any anesthetics! By the way, you removed your’s? I never did.

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