means A thick, often minty gel or cream you put on a toothbrush to clean your teeth, fight decay, and freshen your breath.

from A transparent compound of two old Germanic-rooted words: "tooth," from Old English þŋþ, and "paste," which travelled in through Old French from Late Latin pasta, meaning a dough or paste (the same root that gives us the noodly "pasta"). Earlier generations scrubbed with abrasive "tooth powder"; the squeezable paste in a collapsible tube is a comparatively modern invention, and the word simply names exactly what it is — paste for the teeth.