People often ask me why I don’t smile in photos.
They’re not wrong. Most of my selfies feature firmly sealed lips, with barely a tooth in sight. Why that is remains an unsolved mystery—one my therapist and I are still trying to uncover.
So when I stumbled upon the German expression Zähne zeigen (“to show your teeth”), I grinned. “Here’s yet another reminder of my awkward selfies,” I thought.
Except it wasn’t.
“Give me fish!”
Say cheese
Try showing a cat some affection and it might greet with a hiss, revealing two razor-sharp fangs. Spend enough time around monkeys and one might bare its teeth at you. Give one a camera, and it might even take a selfie—just ask David Slater. A Chihuahua, summoning its inner wolf, flashes its veneers at anything that moves.
Whether it’s fear or aggression, showing teeth is usually less “Nice to see you” and more “Keep your distance.”
Zähne zeigen borrows this instinctive warning signal and applies it to humans. It has nothing to do with smiling and everything to do with standing your ground, asserting yourself and refusing to back down.
In the wild
Like many German idioms, Zähne zeigen is a favourite among journalists. It packs a lot of meaning into just two words, making it perfect for headlines and political reporting.
Take this quote from the Tagesschau’s article Viel Frust und eine Kampfansage covering the Volkswagen workers’ strike:
Betriebsratchefin Daniela Cavallo erklärte bei einer Kundgebung in Wolfsburg, es sei wichtig, "dass wir jetzt kämpfen und Zähne zeigen."
Here, the expression carries its most common meaning. The workers aren’t literally walking around with parted lips. They’re telling the world they’re ready to stand up for themselves and defend their interests.
Now compare it with this headline from [Zahnärztliche Mitteilungen](https://www.zm-online.de/news/detail/tausende-zahnaerzte-zeigen-der-buerokratie-die-zaehne):
Tausende Zahnärzte zeigen der Bürokratie die Zähne
The idiom still means to stand up to the bureaucracy, but the headline adds a delightful layer of wordplay. Of all people, dentists are “showing their teeth.” It’s the kind of pun that only Redewendungen can effortlessly deliver.
What about lions?
All this talk of idioms, animals and supposed smiles reminded me of a famous line by the 10th-century Arab poet Al-Mutanabbi. In it, he offers the following piece of wisdom—or perhaps your next tattoo:
Just because you see the lion’s teeth don’t assume that the lion is smiling.
At first glance, it feels surprisingly close to Zähne zeigen. Both revolve around teeth, both draw on the animal kingdom, and neither has anything to do with dentistry. But while the German expression tells you to show your teeth when the moment calls for it, Al-Mutanabbi’s verse speaks to the observer. It’s a warning against mistaking a threat for friendliness—a reminder that not every grin is a smile.
The same image. Two different lessons. One teaches you how to act; the other teaches you how to save your life.
Allow me to show you more
The pointy white things in your mouth tend to outlive you. The word for them has outlived entire civilisations.
Zahn, tooth and dent look like complete strangers. But beneath the surface, they’re distant relatives, all tracing their ancestry back to the same Proto-Indo-European root. Pun absolutely intended.
Over thousands of years, that ancient root branched into different languages. It eventually gave us German Zahn, English tooth and the Latin dens. From dens, English inherited words like dental, dentist, denture and indent, while the Romance languages preserved it as French dent, Italian dente and Spanish diente.
By now, teeth have taken us from German idioms to Arabic poetry, from smiles to snarls, from hunting to the dinner table. The next time your al dente pasta resists your bite, don’t back down. Show it your teeth.
That’s why I never trust the suggested cooking time on a packet of rigatoni—and why you’ll never know if I’m about to strike… a pose.