tusk

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English tusk, also tosk,^[2][3] by metathesis inherited from Old English tux,^[2][4][3][5] the common variant of the rarer tusc,^[2][6] which gave tush.^[2][7] It is cognate with Old Frisian tusk, also tosk,^[2][4][3] and West Frisian tosk, in which it has displaced the old word for tooth.^[2] Orel and Etymonline derive it from Proto-Germanic *tunþskaz, from the stem of Gothic 𐍄𐌿𐌽𐌸𐌿𐍃 (tunþus, “tooth”),^{[8][9][5][10]} and Etymonline goes on to an extended form of Proto-Indo-European *dent- (“tooth”).^[9][11] This would make it related to tooth, which Skeat and Weekley give only as a possibility.^[12][7] The OED points out that there are no certain cognates outside Anglo-Frisian, that the long vowel assumed in that derivation has no clear evidence, and that it is very doubtful whether the second part of the name of the squirrel Old Norse Rata-toskr, which Orel cites, is the same word.^[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A long pointed tooth: in the laws of King Alfred, before 899, where a man's tux is valued at fifteen shillings, the compensation for knocking it out.^[2][6][5] Bosworth–Toller glosses the Old English word as a canine or molar tooth.^[6] The Middle English form with -sk dates from probably about 1200.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The Old English word was used of ordinary human teeth,^[6][13] and the word now applies especially to the long projecting tooth of an animal.^[2][4] Johnson (1755) defined tusks as "the long teeth of a pugnacious animal", with Bacon naming boars and pikes.^[14] Weekley remarks that the early voyagers rarely spoke of an elephant's tusks, calling them teeth, and that the Ivory Coast was for them the Tooth Coast.^[7] From 1632 the word could be applied in contempt to human teeth,^[2][4] and American criminal slang used it for a tooth from at least 1890.^[15] In 1679 Moxon recorded the carpenters' sense of a sloping shoulder on a tenon.^[2][4] The verb, formed from the noun, was at first a carvers' term, to cut up a barbel, in the Boke of St Albans of 1486;^[2][5] the sense of digging or tearing with tusks comes only in 1629.^[2][5][16] In Yorkshire a tusk-tooth was an eye-tooth, and in the plural tusks were the projecting ends of a door's lintel.^[17] Tusker, a grown elephant, is recorded by 1859.^[9]

Timeline

• before 899 – Old English tux, a canine or molar tooth.^[5][6][2]
• c. 1200 – the Middle English form with -sk.^[5]
• 1486 – verb, to carve a barbel (obsolete by 1508).^[2][5]
• 1616 – verb, to show the teeth (obsolete by 1631).^[2]
• 1629 – verb, to dig up or tear with the tusks.^[2][5][16]
• 1632 – noun, a human tooth, in contempt.^[2]
• 1679 – noun, in carpentry, a sloping shoulder on a tenon.^[2]
• 1808 – noun, the permanent canine tooth of a horse.^[2]
• 1825 – verb, to thrust with the tusks.^[2]
• 1896 – verb, to furnish with tusks or to project like them.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A long pointed tooth that projects from the closed mouth of an animal such as the elephant, walrus or wild boar.^{[18][16][2][4]}
2. The canine tooth of certain animals, especially horses.^[18][2]
3. A sharp pointed projection.^[18][2]
4. In carpentry, a sloping shoulder on a tenon, added for strength.^[18][2][16]
5. (contemptuous or slang) A human tooth.^[2][4][15]

Verb

1. To gore, stab or dig up with the tusks: The boar had tusked the hedge bank bare.^[18][16][2]
2. To equip or adorn with tusks, or to project like them.^[16][2]
3. (obsolete, 1486–1508) To carve a barbel.^[2][5][4]
4. (obsolete, 1616–1631) To bare the teeth.^[2][16][4]

Word family

• tusked
• tusklike
• tuskless

Related words

• tusker
• tooth
• tush

Usage notes

The spelling also covers a northern food fish of the cod family, recorded from 1707 and also called torsk or cusk, which has a separate source in Norwegian torsk or tosk, from Old Norse þorskr.^{[2][16][17][11]} A dialect tusk, a tuft of hair, grass or rushes, recorded from 1530, is of obscure origin.^[2][4][17]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
17. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
18. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins