Meaning of 'not a tooth in his head'?

[riderguy2]

I'd appreciate it if someone can explain what this means:

"He had a reasonably good digestion, a brother who was a parish priest, completely white hair, not a tooth in his head, literally or metaphorically, a trembling in his whole body, ..."

So, what does 'not a tooth in his head' mean?

[Horace LaBadie]

In article <e5aa2b26-de9d-48a8...@googlegroups.com>,

Not a tooth in his mouth, literally.
Harmless, ineffectual, metaphorically.

[Harrison Hill]

Literally: all his teeth had fallen out, so "old".
The metaphor must be "senile", but it is not a metaphor I
have ever encountered.

[musika]

It's literal. All his teeth had fallen out/been removed.

--
Ray
UK

[Don Phillipson]

"riderguy2" <podi.k...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:e5aa2b26-de9d-48a8...@googlegroups.com...

The priest is both white-haired and toothless, i.e. old (aged.)

Your problem here may the two different nuances of the
single verb have/had. The ways in which we say:
(a) he had good digestion and
(b) he had a brother
are slightly different senses of he verb have/had: but it
is permissible to invoke both in the same sentence,
especially for rhetorical effect.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Tue, 28 Mar 2017 17:05:56 +0100, musika <mUs...@NOSPAMexcite.com>
wrote:

That is the literal meaning. However the quotation says:
"not a tooth in his head, literally or metaphorically,"

So as well as being literally toothless he was also
metaphorically/figuratively toothless:

ineffectual, weak, indecisive; lacking forcefulness

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Harrison Hill]

Not in my BrE. "Not a tooth in his head" suggests
an old man who can't eat. "Toothless" suggests a tiger
that can't meaningfully roar. Two unassociated images.

[Tony Cooper]

"Toothless", to me, means either an absence of teeth or the inability
to be effective that normally requires some strong effect.

A "toothless" law is a law that does not effectively regulate whatever
it's supposed to regulate.

Our Attorney General, and Keebler Elf look-alike, is proposing
sanctions on "sanctuary cities" that involve not providing federal
grants to those cities. If the cities are willing and able to
continue as sanctuary cities without those grants, then the Attorney
General's sanctions are toothless.


--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[Jerry Friedman]

Metaphorically, I agree with Peter Duncanson that it probably means
ineffectual, weak, etc.

In fact, the quotation is from some translation of /Les Misérables/.
Here's another translation:

"He had a reasonably good digestion, a brother who was a curé, white hair,
no teeth in his head and no bite in his spirit, a slight tremor that
pervaded his whole body, a Picardy accent, a childlike laugh, a readiness
to take fright, and the general..." (That's as far as Google Books will
let me copy.)

Here's the original:

"Il avait un estomac passable, un frère curé, les cheveux tout blancs,
plus de dents ni dans la bouche ni dans l'esprit, un tremblement de
tout le corps, l'accent picard, un rire enfantin, l'effroi facile, et
l'air d'un vieux mouton."

Literally, "no more teeth in the mouth or in the spirit". Slightly
less literally, "his" instead of "the".

At least we're on topic there at the end.

--
Jerry Friedman

[riderguy2]

On Tuesday, March 28, 2017 at 2:28:08 PM UTC-7, Jerry Friedman wrote:

> Metaphorically, I agree with Peter Duncanson that it probably means
> ineffectual, weak, etc.
>
> In fact, the quotation is from some translation of /Les Misérables/.

Yes. It is the translation by Christine Donougher. What confused me was the 'in the head' part. White hair, no teeth (both signs of being old), so I took the 'no teeth in the head' part to be part of an idiom I'm not familiar with.

[Robert Bannister]

It is an idiom. One might expect "not a tooth in his mouth", but "head"
is the way it goes.

--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972

[Peter Moylan]

The metaphor is a reference to a toothless tiger, i.e. having no ability
to threaten anyone.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Jerry Friedman]

Even more so if, as I've heard suggested, he can't withhold most of the
grant money from the sanctuary cities.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Don Phillipson]

"riderguy2" <podi.k...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:e5aa2b26-de9d-48a8...@googlegroups.com...

This quotes a very old phrase in English (found in John
Skelton's poem John Jayberd of Diss (approx. 1500)
"Never a tooth in his head"
(also notably set to music by Vaughan Williams. Another
poem, The Tunning of Elinor Rumming, part 1 of in the same
canata Five Tudor Portraits, includes:
" . . . like an Egyptian."