tooth. 1. (in most vertebrates) one of the hard bodies or processes usu. attached in a row to each jaw, serving for the prehension and mastication of food, as weapons of attack or defense, etc., and in mammals typically composed chiefly of dentin surrounding a sensitive pulp and covered on the crown with enamel.
In a second, larger sense, East Indies refers to the Malay Archipelago (including the Philippines), which now is more commonly called insular (or archipelagic) Southeast Asia. Finally, in its broadest context, the term East Indies encompasses the foregoing plus all of mainland Southeast Asia and India.
The islands are located in the eastern Pacific Ocean, 973 km (605 mi) off the west coast of South America. The closest land mass is that of mainland Ecuador, the country to which they belong, 926 km/500 nmi to the east.