Malocclusion

Malocclusion, Latin for bad bite

The Glossary of Orthodontic Terms of the American Association of Orthodontists (AAO) opens its entry on malocclusion with the word’s origin, Latin for bad bite, and then gives the meaning: “The term used in orthodontics to describe teeth that do not fit together properly.” The entry does not point to any one problem, so the word reaches every way the upper and lower teeth can fail to fit together. On its own, malocclusion says that a bite is off without yet saying how.

Malocclusion, the umbrella word in orthodontics

Across the AAO’s pages, malocclusion is the general word, and particular bite problems are described as kinds of it. The AAO’s article on common types of bite problems explains that in orthodontics, bite means how the upper and lower teeth come together, and that a bad bite called a malocclusion “happens when teeth meet improperly or don’t meet at all.” The same article then describes particular problems in turn, among them an underbite, an open bite and crowding.

The AAO glossary uses the word the same way: its entry for an open bite begins “A malocclusion in which teeth do not make contact with each other,” and its underbite entry gives Class III malocclusion as another name. So when malocclusion comes up, the useful follow-up question is which kind.

Bad bite and other plain words for malocclusion

Bad bite is the everyday name for malocclusion, and it comes from the AAO’s own gloss on the Latin. The American Dental Association puts the idea in plain terms in its MouthHealthy glossary: “This term is used to describe teeth that don’t line up correctly in the mouth. They may be too far apart, crooked or may not come together right when you bite down.”

What can be done about a malocclusion is a treatment question, and the practice’s page on how braces work picks it up. Overbite, underbite, crossbite, open bite and crowding each have an entry in this site’s glossary.