dentális

Dentális is an adjective used in several European languages to denote something relating to teeth or dentistry. It often appears in technical or bilingual texts as a loanword or equivalent to the more common term for dental matters. In Hungarian, the everyday word for dental topics is fogászati, but dentális can be found in international documents or glossary entries to align with Latin-based medical vocabulary.

Etymology and usage: Dentális derives from the Latin dentalis, meaning tooth-related, through the root dent- and the common medical suffix -alis. In languages such as Czech and Slovak, dentální/dentální is a standard term for dental-related concepts. In Hungarian and others, its use is more limited to cross-language contexts and specialized terminology, where it functions alongside native terms.

Contexts: The term typically appears in multilingual dental literature, glossaries, and technical specifications. It is also used in phonetics or linguistics to denote dental consonants, a sense that is common in Czech and related languages. In everyday Hungarian medical writing, the preferred term is usually fogászati; dentális remains a recognizable loanword in more formal or international contexts.

See also: Dentistry; dental terminology; dental anatomy; etymology of medical terms.