Long In the Tooth Gift Horse

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Idioms can be very confusing for non-native English speakers. In fact they can be confusing for native English speakers too because they don't make sense unless you've been told what they mean.

This interesting dictation focuses on two equine related idioms.

equine
ˈɛːkwʌɪn Listen
Meanings
adjective
  • relating to or affecting horses or other members of the horse family.
    E.g. equine infectious anaemia
noun
  • a horse or other member of the horse family.
    E.g. they compared the behaviour of humans and equines

As the definition shows, equine refers to things that are related to horses and this dictation will explain to you the meaning of the phrases "long in the tooth" and "don't look a gift horse in the mouth".

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She has an American accent and expects you to use American spelling.

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Have you heard the expression that someone is a bit "long in the tooth" and wondered what it means? Or perhaps you have heard someone say "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" and found that a puzzling phrase.

These two expressions or idioms both relate to horses. An old horse often looks like it has long teeth because its gums recede as it gets older. Therefore, we'll say someone is getting "long in the tooth" as a way to say they are getting past their best and getting old.

The expression "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" is a phrase that means that we shouldn't be ungrateful for gifts. In days gone by, if someone was given the gift of a horse, they could tell the age of the horse by looking at its teeth. As we know, if a horse had long teeth it would likely be an old horse.

Therefore if someone was to receive a horse as a gift and wanted to know the value of the gift they would rudely look the gift horse in its mouth to see its teeth. A bit like opening a gift today and immediately visiting eBay to see what it's worth!

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Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash