A wisdom tooth, in humans, is any of the usual four third molars. Wisdom teeth usually appear between the ages of 16 and 25. Most adults have four wisdom teeth, but it is possible to have fewer (hypodontia), or more, in which case they are called supernumerary teeth. Wisdom teeth commonly affect other teeth as they develop, becoming impacted or "coming in sideways." They are often extracted when this occurs.
Read more about Wisdom Tooth: Impaction, Partial Eruption, Extraction, Post-extraction Problems, Treatment Controversy, Vestigiality and Variation, Potential Uses For Extracted Teeth, Etymology
Famous quotes containing the words wisdom and/or tooth:
“Having become conscious of the truth he once perceived, man now sees only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence, he now understands the symbolic element in Ophelia’s fate, he now recognizes the wisdom of the woodland god, Silenus: it nauseates him.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen, that it may live
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,
Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt, that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)