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mandible

US/ˈmeə̯n.dɪb.əl/
nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,077 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: mandibles

A mandible is one of the biting jaws of an insect. Powerful mandibles, the ant's mandibles, close the mandibles.

Insect mandibles work side to side rather than up and down, which is the opposite of ours, and in ants and beetles they double as tools and weapons. In human anatomy the mandible is the lower jaw, the only bone of the skull that moves.

Polygon data were generated by Database Center for Life Science (DBCLS) · CC BY-SA 2.1 jp

Definitions of mandible

  1. 1nounmandibleOne of the biting jaws of an insect.C1

    “The ant gripped the leaf in its mandibles and carried it back to the nest.”

mandible is a jaw.

Where it comes from

Latin mandibula comes from mandere, to chew.

  1. Latin

    mandibula — a jaw

  2. English, today

    mandible

From late Middle English -, from Latin mandibula (“a jaw”), from mandō + -bula.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Insects & Sea Life

Practise this word

mandible in the wild

  • The joints are unique in their bilateral function, being connected via the mandible.

    Temporomandibular joint

  • The mandible is the movable part of the jaw.

    Maxilla

  • When each muscle works independently, they can move the mandible side to side.

    Lateral pterygoid muscle

  • The alveolar process () is the portion of bone containing the tooth sockets on the jaw bones (in humans, the maxilla and the mandible).

    Alveolar process

  • The Stafne defect is a depression of the mandible (jawbone), most commonly located on the lingual surface (the side nearest the tongue).

    Stafne defect

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.