pearly whites
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Teeth, especially when they are clean and shiny
Literally: white pearls
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
They recommend at least three minutes brushing twice a day to keep your teeth looking pearly white.
As Dogs Today readers know, poor Des has had buckets to cope with in his short life and can be a bit free ‘ n’ easy with his pearly whites.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “pearly whites” mean?
Teeth, especially when they are clean and shiny Literally: white pearls
Is “pearly whites” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.