ਦੰਦ

Dand (ਦੰਦ) is the Punjabi word for tooth: one of the hard white structures in the mouth that bite and chew food, and the word Punjabis use for the whole set when they say dand saaf karne, cleaning the teeth, or dand dukhda hai, a tooth aches. Said with a soft dental d and a short u, dand is among the first body words a Punjabi child learns, usually around the time the first milk tooth loosens.

What does dand mean in Punjabi?

Dand means a tooth. The Punjabi entry on Wiktionary gives ਦੰਦ (dand), a masculine noun, simply as tooth, with the Shahmukhi spelling دند used in Pakistani Punjab. The same word serves for one tooth and for teeth in general: the verb and the context carry the number. Its close relative daarh names the big back grinding teeth, the molars, and families separate the two without thinking: a daarh aches deep at the back, while the front dand show in a smile.

Where does the word dand come from?

Dand is an inherited word, not a borrowing. It comes down from Old Punjabi dandu, through Prakrit damta, from Sanskrit danta, and behind that from the Proto Indo European word for tooth, built on a root meaning bite. English tooth and German Zahn grow from that same ancient root, so dand and tooth are distant cousins. Persian carries a parallel form, dandaan, which Rekhta records simply as tooth: its compounds dandaan e shiir, milk teeth, and dandaan e aql, the wisdom teeth, echo the Punjabi pairings of dudh wale dand and akal daarh.

How is dand used in everyday Punjabi?

Teeth carry feelings in Punjabi idiom, and the dictionary entry lists the family. Dand kaddhne, showing the teeth, is to grin. Dand peehne is to gnash the teeth in anger. Dand vajjna describes teeth chattering, from cold or from fear. The strongest of the set, dand khatte karna, to make someone's teeth sour, means to defeat or dishearten them, and it has its own page in this Kosh. At home the word stays practical: a baby's dand nikalna as the new teeth come through, datun twigs beside the toothpaste, and grandparents warning that too much mithaas, sweetness, will spoil the dand.

What is the difference between dand and daarh?

Dand is the general word for any tooth and for the set as a whole. Daarh is narrower: it names the broad molars at the very back of the jaw that grind food, and it is the word inside akal daarh, the wisdom tooth that arrives last of all. A person counts their dand, but a deep pain at the back is almost always blamed on a daarh. A dentist, in everyday speech, is a dandaan da doctor, using dandaan, the Persian style plural for teeth, as the word for the trade.