Megs for 'teeth'

[fredpuli47]

What's the origin of 'megs' used as a word for teeth ? I've heard 'meggy pegs' too, but my late mother used just 'megs' for teeth, particularly when talking calmingly to her dogs when examining theirs !.

[scotman]

Dunno.
Cassell's Dict of Slang doesn't help nor do any of my Scottish dictionaries.. Where was your mother brought up?

[fredpuli47]

She was Irish but brought up in Cambridge. Naturally, I use the word too but have only just realised that it's not in the dictionary ! Some of her other odd vocabulary has proved to be of Indian origin e.g. 'parney' for 'rain' but I don't think this word has come here from ex-India servicemen.

[Quizmonster]

I wonder whether the lady was actually using meg to mean a tooth. I ask because mag in Gaelic and meg in Scots means a paw. May I assume it is impossible that your mother was just saying, "Give a paw" as a way of calming her dogs? Just a thought...probably nonsense...but there you go!

[fredpuli47]

Interesting QM but in her case that have to mean that the dog had put its foot in its mouth, an activity confined to the humans in the family. The word was confined to teeth and teeth inspections. She bred poodles. She'd say 'Let's have a look at those megs' as soon as they were getting teeth, when seeing how the pup's bite was developing.The grown dogs regularly suffered this indignity too and always with the same invitation !.

My thought then was that it might be a 'baby word' for teeth which she'd learned in her own childhood. She and I would not use it as a regular word for teeth but would use it jocularly, as one might say 'gnashers', or in talking to our children.

[Quizmonster]

Above, Fred, I was suggesting that the paw-word might have been a doggy-distraction from the oral activity rather than a notion that the distinct body-parts should be brought together!
How about this, then?...
Since the 16th century, the word 'peg' has been used to mean a tooth. Both Peg and Meg are diminutives of the name, Margaret, and thus effectively synonymous. Could it, therefore, be that meg = tooth is just a very local - or even just family - dialect creation? At one time, my whole family referred to our Alsatian as 'the vog' rather than 'the dog' because I - for some insane reason - started to call him that.

[fredpuli47]

QM, I bet that's it. She did use 'meggy pegs' as a true 'baby word' or diminutive for the pup or a baby's 'little teeth, while reserving 'megs' for teeth. Megs could be no more than a back-formation from 'meggy pegs' or it could be that 'meg' was an existing alternative to peg, a word for a tooth..