What is the definition or description of: crooked teeth?

Not straight: When teeth do not line up in an ideal position they are crooked. They may be rotated, slanted or have some other deviation in position. It can be slight or severe which would warrant an orthodontic consult. There are functional and health reasons in addition to esthetic reasons to consider straightening teeth.

Misalignment: Teeth that are misaligned and do not follow the general arch pattern b/c of tilting or rotation.

Crooked Teeth: Teeth that are malpositioned is such a way that they don't align or occlude with each other in the most harmonious possible manner.

Not in alignment: Crooked teeth are teeth that are not in the typical or ideal positioning in the dental arches. If the teeth are overlapped, rotated or positioned too far to the check or tongue side they can be considered crooked.

Malaligned teeth: Teeth that are not straight or do not correspond to the archform of the alveolar ridge in the maxilla or mandible. This may be both in the horizontal or vertical plane.

Crooked teeth: Teeth should line up in a even line going around the arch of the teeth when a tooth is tilted of out of alignment we refer to the arch as having crooked teeth. Orthodontic treatment can usually solve this.

3 planes of space: People see your teeth as crooked because they are not conforming with the ideal arrangement. 3 planes of space are involved: the vertical arrangement may be up and down, they may angulate/rotate or tip transversely from side to side, or the torque or frontal angulation may be flat or flared. If teeth alter from these spatial arrangements and do not fit a proper curved arch, they are "crooked".

Messed-up: Actually, crooked teeth are typically crowded together, have lost their normal contact points between teeth, shifted across each other, and rotated. Crooked teeth may be part of a malocclusion (literally, a bad bite). Orthodontics deals with the resolution of crooked or crowded teeth as one aspect of treatment.

Bad bite: Teeth or jaws may be rotated, twisted, tipped, out of position, over-erupted, under-erupted, in cross bite, protrusive, retrusive, off of bone support, impacted, not coming together properly, etc. If they don't look right, they don't work right. If you can see 1 problem, there are probably multiple problems. Have an orthodontic specialist take a look (initial exam probably free) and advise you.