spicy tooth
A liking for foods that are spicy.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“I have a spicy tooth, so I love hot sauce.”
“Because she has a spicy tooth, she always orders the hottest curry on the menu.”
“Despite his refined palate, his well-known spicy tooth often leads him to seek out the most pungent peppers in the market.”
Formed by analogy with the much older *sweet tooth*, the expression replicates the structure of the earlier idiom to indicate a preference for pungent or piquantly seasoned food. While the parent phrase *sweet tooth* dates to the late 14th century, this variation is a modern derivation.
- 01
an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
compensation for injury caused by a person, in the form of inflicting of an identical injury on that person.
- 02
clean as a hound's tooth
Very clean.
- 03
hen's tooth
Anything not naturally occurring.
- 04
long in the tooth
Old; aged.
- 05
salty tooth
A liking for foods that are salty.
- 06
sour tooth
A liking for foods that are sour.
- 07
sweet tooth
A liking for foods that are sweet; a weakness for sweets.
Last updated August 10, 2026