Dictionary

toothachingly en · ADV

Etymology

From toothaching + -ly.

Meanings

1. So as to cause toothache.
   • It's why McDonald's finally downsized its portions, why you can now bake a gluten-free version of the same Betty Crocker toothachingly sweet cake mix you enjoyed as a child. 2015, Jax Peters Lowell, The Gluten-Free Revolution:
   • While this last could be eliminated for my taste, the overall effect is not as toothachingly sweet as some of these cereals can get. 1974, New York Magazine:
   • Sweeter still — almost toothachingly so — are chongos zamoranos, a curious confection invented in Zamora in which milk, sugar and spices are boiled for about five days then laid away in syrup. 1972, R. B. Read, Gastronomic Tour of Mexico:
   • These two truths coexisted in my mind without overlapping until I bit into a piece of crumb cake so texturally perfect (soft sliver of cake topped by a deep layer of grape-size crumbs), yet so toothachingly sweet that the only antidote was sucking on the lemon in my seltzer. 2007 June 6, Melissa Clark, “Sweet and Sour Sit Down to Dessert”, in New York Times:
   • I recall the taste of the rain, sweet and toothachingly cold; the tiny blows of drops striking my eyelids; my halfbrother's laughter rippling in my ears. 2004, Kij Johnson, Fudoki:
2. Overly in possession of an otherwise positive trait.
   • 1991: The Amazing Story of The Fantasticks, by Donald C. Farber and Robert Viagas The critics complained that the show was toothachingly darling, though the consensus among its creators is that the show was removed from its open-stage concept and placed in a traditional proscenium environment, breaking the important connection between actor and audience.
   • A college teacher (that makes the heart sink to begin with), he has a literary reputation about which he is agreeably modest (toothachingly), and, since Seymour committed suicide in 1948, Buddy is, at forty, the eldest Glass child. 1962, The New Republic:
3. Painfully, irritatingly.
   • Have you ever wondered how it is possible for someone to drive a motorised vehicle so toothachingly, nerverenderingly slow? 2009, Ben Jeapes, Jeapes Japes:

Forms