carca noun "tooth" (KARAK) or "fang" (SA:carak-). In a deleted version of the entry in question, the glosses were "tooth, spike, peak" (VT45:19). When referring to a normal tooth, not necessarily sharp, the word nelet is probably to be preferred. Cf. also pl. carcar _("karkar") _in Markirya, there translated "rocks", evidently referring to sharp rocks. Already the early "Qenya Lexicon" has carca ("k")"fang, tooth, tusk" (LT2:344). Collective carcanë, q.v.
Quenya
carca
noun. fang; [sharp] rock, fang, [ᴹQ.] tooth, [ᴱQ.] tusk; [Q.] rock
carca
tooth
carcanë
row of teeth
carcanë ("k")noun "row of teeth" (KARAK; this may be a misreading for *carcarë). In early "Qenya", carcanë meant "snarling", adj. (MC:213)
carcaras
row of spikes or teeth
carcaras, carcassë _("k")_noun "row of spikes or teeth" (LT2:344 - Tolkien's later Quenya has carcanë [read ?carcarë], but these words, especially carcassë, may still be valid)
carcaran
noun. crocodile, (lit.) toothed-beam
carcapolca
noun. boar, *(lit.) tusk-pig
carcara
adjective. toothed
carcasarma
noun. large saw
firinga
carcanet, necklace
firinga noun "carcanet, necklace" (LT2:346, GL:36)
quelehtë
noun. carcass
firinga
noun. necklace, carcanet
nelcë
tooth
nelcë ("k")noun "tooth", also nelet (VT46:3)
nelet
tooth
nelet, also nelcë ("k")noun "tooth", pl. nelci ("k") suggesting a stem-form nelc- (NÉL-EK)
A word for “fang” (CA/carak), “tooth” (Ety/KARAK), or “tusk” (QL/48), derived from the root √KARAK of similar meaning (Ety/KARAK). In the Markirya poem from the 1960s, this word was used for “rocks” in the phrase ninqui carcar yarra “the white rocks snarling” (MC/222), but very likely this use was metaphorical for sharp rocks; in the version of the poem from around 1930, the phrase used the more ordinary word for “rocks”: ᴱQ. ondoli (MC/213). Likely the word carca is used mainly for the sharp teeth (fangs) of carnivorous animals, as opposed to ᴹQ. nelet (nelc-) as the more ordinary word for “tooth”.
Conceptual Development: The word ᴱQ. karka dates all the way back to the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s where it was glossed “fang, tooth, tusk” and derived from the early root ᴱ√KṚKṚ (QL/48). It also appeared in the contemporaneous Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa with the gloss “fang” (PME/48). ᴹQ. karka “tooth” appeared in The Etymologies of the 1930s under the root ᴹ√KARAK “sharp fang, spike, tooth” (Ety/KARAK); an earlier version of this entry gave the root (and karka?) the glosses “tooth, spike, peak” (EtyAC/KARAK).
The noun carca is only directly attested in later writings in the 1960s Markirya poem, as noted above, but other √KARAK derivatives appeared regularly in the 1950s and 60s, such as S. carch “fang” and S. carach “jaws”.