jawbone

nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,184 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: jawbones

The jawbone is the bone that carries the lower teeth. A broken jawbone, the jawbone of an ass, the jawbone healed.

It is the only bone in the skull that moves and the strongest bone in the face. Because it survives well, a jawbone with its teeth is one of the most useful things a fossil hunter can find: the teeth alone can identify the species and the diet.

Definitions of jawbone

1nounjawboneThe bone that carries the lower teeth.B2+
“The dentist's X-ray showed a small crack in her jawbone.”

jawbone is a bone.

Also accepted in games: mandible

Where it comes from

Middle English jawe bone, replacing an older compound with the same meaning.

Middle English
jawe bone
English, today
jawbone

Built from

chavyl bon · Middle English — jaw bone (literally “chavel bone”)

From Middle English jawe bone, a partial calque of earlier Middle English chawlbone, chawylbon, chavylbone, chawle boon, chavyl bon (“jaw bone”) literally “chavel bone”, see chavel-bone; equivalent to jaw + bone.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Dinosaurs & Prehistory

Practise this word

jawbone in the wild

The fragments of the cranium that Dawson had originally found had human like features, whereas the lower jawbone that they found had resembled a jawbone of an ape.
Piltdown Man
The instrument is a modern version of the jawbone.
Vibraslap
The jawbone is cleaned of tissue and dried to make the teeth loose and act as a rattle.
Jawbone (instrument)
The jawbone is the skull's only movable, posable bone, sharing joints with the cranium's temporal bones.
Mandible
Amongst other functions, the jawbone is essential for chewing food.
Mandible

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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