Permanent teeth are the adult set that gradually replaces every baby tooth.

In kid words

"Permanent teeth are your grown-up teeth, the ones that come in after your baby teeth and stick around for good." There is no tooth fairy visit waiting for these ones. Brushing and flossing matter even more once they are in, since this set has to last a very long time.

The parent version

Permanent teeth, sometimes called adult or secondary teeth, are the set that gradually takes over from the twenty primary teeth a child starts out with. They arrive one at a time over several years, typically beginning in the early elementary years and continuing into the teenage years, generally following close to the same order the primary teeth once did.

This is the only set a person gets from here on, which is part of why mainstream dental guidance treats caring for a newly arrived permanent tooth just as seriously as any other. The order and pace still varies from child to child, so ask your pediatric dentist about what to expect for your own child.

Where you might hear it at our office

Every routine visit includes a growth check, and for this set that means keeping track of which permanent teeth have already settled in, which ones are still on the way, and whether everything is lining up the way it should. Once enough baby teeth have been shed and the permanent set is far enough along, that groundwork is also what makes orthodontics possible: traditional braces are fitted only after the baby teeth they once stood in for are gone.

Any other word from a visit that is still a mystery is probably already explained in the rest of the dictionary.

Related words

Eruption. Exfoliation. Deciduous teeth.