Dental Symptoms in English: How to Describe Pain Precisely

"My tooth hurts" opens a conversation; it does not describe anything. A dentist is listening for four things: the quality of the pain (throbbing, sharp, dull), its pattern (constant, intermittent, lingering), what provokes it (pain on biting, cold sensitivity) and where it is.

This list covers 71 terms: the full set of pain descriptors, gingival and soft-tissue symptoms, signs affecting the tooth itself, complaints about breath and taste, jaw problems and systemic signs.

Who this is for

  • Patients abroad — describing a complaint so it lands the first time
  • Clinicians and hygienists — running an appointment and taking a history in English
  • Students — the vocabulary of history-taking and differential diagnosis

Word list to learn

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Word
toothache ˈtuːθeɪk
dental pain ˈdentəl peɪn
sharp pain ʃɑːp peɪn
dull pain dʌl peɪn
throbbing pain ˈθrɒbɪŋ peɪn
shooting pain ˈʃuːtɪŋ peɪn
aching ˈeɪkɪŋ
radiating pain ˈreɪdieɪtɪŋ peɪn
referred pain rɪˈfɜːd peɪn
constant pain ˈkɒnstənt peɪn
intermittent pain ˌɪntəˈmɪtənt peɪn
spontaneous pain spɒnˈteɪniəs peɪn
lingering pain ˈlɪŋɡərɪŋ peɪn
mild pain maɪld peɪn
severe pain sɪˈvɪə peɪn
pressure ˈpreʃə
tenderness ˈtendənəs
discomfort dɪsˈkʌmfət
sensitivity ˌsensɪˈtɪvəti
cold sensitivity kəʊld ˌsensɪˈtɪvəti
heat sensitivity hiːt ˌsensɪˈtɪvəti
sweet sensitivity swiːt ˌsensɪˈtɪvəti
pain on biting peɪn ɒn ˈbaɪtɪŋ
pain on chewing peɪn ɒn ˈtʃuːɪŋ
tender to touch ˈtendə tə tʌtʃ
bleeding gums ˈbliːdɪŋ ɡʌmz
swollen gums ˈswəʊlən ɡʌmz
sore gums sɔː ɡʌmz
red gums red ɡʌmz
itchy gums ˈɪtʃi ɡʌmz
receding gums rɪˈsiːdɪŋ ɡʌmz
swelling ˈswelɪŋ
facial swelling ˈfeɪʃəl ˈswelɪŋ
inflammation ˌɪnfləˈmeɪʃən
pus pʌs
discharge ˈdɪstʃɑːdʒ
mouth ulcer maʊθ ˈʌlsə
canker sore ˈkæŋkə sɔː
cold sore kəʊld sɔː
blister ˈblɪstə
white patch waɪt pætʃ
loose tooth luːs tuːθ
tooth mobility tuːθ məʊˈbɪləti
chipped tooth tʃɪpt tuːθ
cracked tooth krækt tuːθ
broken tooth ˈbrəʊkən tuːθ
worn tooth wɔːn tuːθ
discoloration dɪsˌkʌləˈreɪʃən
stained tooth steɪnd tuːθ
dark tooth dɑːk tuːθ
exposed root ɪkˈspəʊzd ruːt
gap between teeth ɡæp bɪˈtwiːn tiːθ
food impaction fuːd ɪmˈpækʃən
bad breath bæd breθ
bad taste bæd teɪst
metallic taste məˈtælɪk teɪst
dry mouth draɪ maʊθ
burning sensation ˈbɜːnɪŋ senˈseɪʃən
numbness ˈnʌmnəs
tingling ˈtɪŋɡlɪŋ
jaw pain dʒɔː peɪn
jaw clicking dʒɔː ˈklɪkɪŋ
jaw locking dʒɔː ˈlɒkɪŋ
limited mouth opening ˈlɪmɪtɪd maʊθ ˈəʊpənɪŋ
trismus ˈtrɪzməs
difficulty chewing ˈdɪfɪkəlti ˈtʃuːɪŋ
difficulty swallowing ˈdɪfɪkəlti ˈswɒləʊɪŋ
teeth grinding tiːθ ˈɡraɪndɪŋ
jaw clenching dʒɔː ˈklentʃɪŋ
fever ˈfiːvə
swollen lymph node ˈswəʊlən ˈlɪmf nəʊd

Useful phrases

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Phrase
I have a toothache.
The pain started three days ago.
It hurts when I bite down.
My tooth is sensitive to cold drinks.
The pain keeps me awake at night.
My gums bleed when I brush my teeth.
I have a throbbing pain in my upper left molar.
The pain comes and goes.
My jaw clicks when I open my mouth.
I have a bad taste in my mouth.
One of my teeth feels loose.
The whole side of my face is swollen.
Painkillers don't help any more.
Can you show me exactly where it hurts?

At the Appointment: Describing Toothache and Symptoms

Click the speaker icon to hear the full dialogue

Dentist
Good afternoon. What seems to be the problem today?
Patient
I've had a toothache on the upper right side for about a week.
Dentist
How would you describe the pain — sharp, dull or throbbing?
Patient
It's throbbing, and it keeps me awake at night.
Dentist
Is it constant, or does it come and go?
Patient
It was intermittent at first, but now it's almost constant.
Dentist
Does anything make it worse — cold drinks, hot food, biting?
Patient
Cold drinks are the worst. The pain lingers for a minute afterwards.
Dentist
And is the tooth tender when you bite down on it?
Patient
Yes, there's pain on biting, and the gum around it feels swollen.
Dentist
Have you noticed bleeding gums or a bad taste in your mouth?
Patient
My gums bleed when I brush, and I've had a bad taste for a few days.
Dentist
Any facial swelling, fever, or difficulty opening your mouth?
Patient
No fever, but my jaw feels stiff in the morning.
Dentist
Thank you — that's a very clear description. Let me examine the tooth and take an X-ray.
Patient
Does lingering pain to cold mean something serious?
Dentist
It usually means the pulp is inflamed. The X-ray will tell us for certain.

Common mistakes

Avoid these common mistakes

Wrong This tooth is very sensible to cold drinks.
Correct This tooth is very sensitive to cold drinks.

Sensible means practical or showing good judgement — a sensible decision, sensible shoes. The word you need is sensitive, which describes reacting readily to a stimulus: a sensitive tooth, sensitive to cold, sensitive to sweet things. The noun is sensitivity, and the clinical term is dentin hypersensitivity. Spanish sensible, French sensible and Portuguese sensível all mean sensitive, which makes this one of the most persistent false friends in patient history taking.

Wrong I have had this pain since three days.
Correct I have had this pain for three days.

For takes a duration — for three days, for a fortnight, for six months. Since takes a starting point — since Tuesday, since last winter, since the crown was fitted. The tense matters too: this is the present perfect, I have had the pain, because the problem started in the past and continues now. German seit, French depuis and Spanish desde hace all cover both meanings with one word, which is exactly why the error survives into advanced English.

Wrong The pain is pulsating and wakes me at night.
Correct The pain is throbbing and wakes me at night.

Throbbing is the fixed descriptor for a pain that beats in time with the pulse, and it is what patients and clinicians both say: a throbbing pain, the tooth is throbbing. Pulsating is used of blood vessels and machinery, not of symptoms. Learn the descriptor set as a block, because histories are built from it: sharp, dull, shooting, aching, constant versus intermittent, spontaneous, lingering and radiating. Lingering pain after a cold stimulus is a classic sign of irreversible pulpitis.

Wrong I have a smell from my mouth in the morning.
Correct I have bad breath in the morning.

The idiomatic term is bad breath, and the clinical one is halitosis; the calque a smell from my mouth marks the speaker instantly. Useful variants: morning breath for the harmless overnight kind, and the verb pattern my breath smells. Keep the register pair in mind, since it repeats across this whole topic — bad breath and halitosis, dry mouth and xerostomia, teeth grinding and bruxism. Patients use the first of each pair, notes use the second.

Wrong The pain is about eight from ten.
Correct The pain is about eight out of ten.

Scores in English take out of: eight out of ten, a score of three out of five. From and on are calques — French sur dix, Russian из десяти, Polish na dziesięć. The question itself is formulaic and worth memorising: On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain? Good answers combine the number with a descriptor and a trigger: it is a dull three most of the time, but it goes up to nine when I bite on it.

About This List

Pain vocabulary is a closed set — learn all of it

English pain description is built from four groups, each with its own short, fixed list:

  • Quality: sharp, dull, throbbing, shooting, aching
  • Pattern: constant, intermittent, spontaneous, lingering
  • Intensity: mild, moderate, severe
  • Provocation: pain on biting, pain on chewing, cold / heat / sweet sensitivity, tender to touch

These are not interchangeable. Which word a patient uses changes what the clinician does next.

Why lingering and momentary change the diagnosis

The decisive question at an appointment is whether cold-induced pain stops immediately or stays. Brief pain that disappears with the stimulus points to reversible pulpitis and the pulp can be kept. Pain that lingers after the cold is removed indicates irreversible pulpitis, which means root canal treatment.

Other descriptors carry the same weight:

  • Spontaneous pain — arriving with no trigger, often at night: pulpal involvement
  • Pain on biting — suspicion of a crack or a periapical lesion
  • Referred and radiating pain are not synonyms: radiating pain spreads along a nerve path from its source, while referred pain is felt somewhere other than the source. An upper molar can present as lower jaw pain — that is referred

What the patient says and what the chart records

Almost every complaint has a lay form and a clinical one. Records use the second:

Patient Chart
bad breath halitosis
dry mouth xerostomia
teeth grinding bruxism
receding gums gingival recession
loose tooth tooth mobility
canker sore aphthous ulcer
cold sore herpes labialis
jaw locking trismus

Limited mouth opening is the same finding as trismus, written descriptively. Both appear in English-language notes.

Distinctions that get blurred

  • Tender and sensitive are different: tender hurts on pressure, sensitive reacts to temperature or sweetness
  • Discomfort is a clinical euphemism — if it hurts, say pain, or the complaint gets downgraded
  • Swelling is local; facial swelling is an urgent finding and a different conversation
  • Pus and discharge are not equivalent: pus is purulent, discharge is any exudate
  • A white patch is always documented, because it may be premalignant

Symptom words that behave oddly in English

  • Toothache is uncountable in the singular — I have toothache (BrE) or a toothache (AmE), never toothaches
  • Sensitivity takes to: sensitivity to cold, not sensitivity from cold
  • Tender takes to: tender to percussion, tender to touch
  • Radiate takes to: the pain radiates to my ear
  • Swollen is the adjective, swelling the noun — swollen gums but gingival swelling

Frequently Asked Questions

Use three axes. Quality: sharp, dull, throbbing, shooting, aching. Course: constant or intermittent, spontaneous, lingering. Trigger: pain on biting, pain on chewing, sensitivity to cold or sweet. A clinically useful sentence combines all three — it is a dull ache most of the time, but sharp and lingering when I drink something cold.

Sensitive describes reacting to a stimulus: a sensitive tooth, sensitive to cold. Sensible means practical or showing good judgement and has nothing to do with symptoms. Spanish, French and Portuguese cognates all mean sensitive, so this false friend is extremely common in history taking. The noun is sensitivity; the clinical term is dentin hypersensitivity.

Dentin hypersensitivity is a short, sharp pain triggered by cold, sweet or touch that stops as soon as the stimulus is removed, typically from exposed dentin at the neck of the tooth. A toothache that is spontaneous, throbbing and lingering after the stimulus suggests pulp involvement, often irreversible pulpitis. The distinguishing feature is whether the pain outlasts its trigger.

Referred pain is felt at a site distant from its source, because pulpal nerves lack proprioceptors and the brain cannot localise the signal precisely. A lower molar can refer pain to the ear, an upper molar to the temple or sinus, and pain can even cross arches. That is why patients point at the wrong tooth, and why clinicians rely on percussion, palpation and vitality tests.

For three days. For introduces a length of time; since introduces a starting point — since Monday, since the crown was fitted. The natural tense is the present perfect: I have had the pain for three days. The standard clinical questions are How long have you had this pain? and When did it start?

Scores use out of, never from or on: eight out of ten. The formulaic question is On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain? A strong answer adds variation over time and a trigger: it sits around three, but it spikes to eight or nine when I bite on it, and it wakes me at night. Night pain and spontaneous pain are the details clinicians listen for.

Both, in different places. Bad breath is the everyday term you use with a patient; halitosis belongs in notes and literature. The same register split runs through this topic: dry mouth and xerostomia, teeth grinding and bruxism, loose tooth and tooth mobility. Matching register to audience is most of professional tone.

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