I had not cut my wise teeth.

The speaker looks back on a time when they were too inexperienced to exercise sound judgment. The image of teeth coming in treats wisdom as something acquired with maturity.

It can explain a past mistake or naive choice without necessarily excusing it. The emphasis is on the speaker’s earlier lack of judgment, not on their actual dental development.

Use it when recounting something you did before you had the experience to understand its consequences. It suits a reflective account of your own earlier decisions rather than a literal discussion of teeth.