What does "齓" mean? I've found this kanji during Shodo practice. My teacher (Japanese) didn't know the meaning (she recognized the Tooth bushu/radical but not the "word"). I tried to look it up on the electronic dictionaries I own, both Japanese and Chinese, but while the kanji exists and even has a phonetic associated to it: !From Tangorin.com there is no actual meaning. Finally I got something from a Chinese online dictionary. Allegedly (I used Google translate on the whole page) it is an old ideogram for "Milk Teeth". Now the question(s): * Does this mean anything in Japanese? * What would be the current Japanese way to indicate "Milk teeth"?

The character in question was originally composed of (teeth) and (child). It represented children's teeth. This later became and . is typically preferred over , so I will use it below. It has two primary meanings: 1) in children, the replacement of old teeth with new teeth; 2) children of an age in which they are loosing their old teeth and growing new ones.

There are several compounds:

* (chōshin): a child around the age of 7 or 8
* (shinchō): (in general) a child
* (shindō): children of an age in which they are loosing their old teeth and growing in new ones