Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The lower jaw of a vertebrate animal.
  • noun Either the upper or lower part of the beak in birds.
  • noun Any of various mouth organs of invertebrates used for seizing and biting food, especially either of a pair of such organs in insects and other arthropods.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Demandable.
  • noun In zoöl, and anatomy, a jaw-bone; a jaw, or the jaw-bone and associate parts; especially, the under jaw.
  • noun In polyzoans, an operculum.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Anat.) The bone, or principal bone, of the lower jaw; the inferior maxilla; -- also applied to either the upper or the lower jaw in the beak of birds.
  • noun (Zoöl.) The anterior pair of mouth organs of insects, crustaceaus, and related animals, whether adapted for biting or not. See Illust. of Diptera.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The lower jaw, especially the lower jawbone.
  • noun One of a pair of mouthparts of an arthropod designed for holding food.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the jaw in vertebrates that is hinged to open the mouth

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin mandibula, from Latin mandere, to chew.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin mandibula.

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Examples

  • Results presented call into question differences in mandible shape recently used to distinguish Gigantopithecus giganteus from Gigantopithecus blacki and to justify resurrecting a different generic designation, "Indopithecus," for the former.

    Archive 2009-02-01 2009

  • Distracters, the media, and the debunkers in this current onslaught against the discovery are completely ignoring the evidence of the possibly nine Homo floresiensis individuals discovered at the site, says Brown. “There are no modern humans with the postcranial dimensions of Homo floresiensis and the second mandible is well outside the range of human variation, ” Brown told Cryptomundo.

    Boing Boing: May 21, 2006 - May 27, 2006 Archives 2006

  • Finally, a complete mandible is known for the Hungarian azhdarchid Bakonydraco.

    Archive 2006-04-01 Darren Naish 2006

  • Nor is it more difficult to discern that, in the appendages of the tail, the middle division appears again and the outer vanishes; while, on the other hand, in the foremost jaw, the so-called mandible, the inner division only is left; and, in the same way, the parts of the feelers and of the eye-stalks can be identified with those of the legs and jaws.

    Essays 2007

  • The lower mandible, which is powerful, and is indented at its point to receive the hook, has a very sharp edge, which, with that of the upper mandible, constitutes a pair of formidable shears.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 Various

  • The upper mandible, which is strongly convex, exhibits upon its median line a slight ridge, which is quite wide at its origin, and then continues to decrease and becomes sensibly depressed as far as to the center of its length, and afterward rises on approaching the anterior extremity, where it terminates in a powerful hook, which seems to form

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 Various

  • Correlated with this peculiarity the maxilla usually has the tomia sinuated, and is generally concave, and smaller and narrower than the mandible, which is also concave to receive the palatal knob.

    Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" Various

  • On the body of the mandible is a median ridge, indicating the position of the symphysis; this ridge divides below to enclose the mental protuberance, the lateral angles of which constitute the mental tubercles.

    II. Osteology. 5c. The Exterior of the Skull 1918

  • The manner in which they eat the roots of the plaintain in the grass walk is very curious; with their upper mandible, which is much larger than the lower, they bore under the plant, and so eat the root off upward, leaving the tuft of leaves untouched.

    Our Friend John Burroughs Barrus, Clara, 1864-1931 1914

  • Nor is it more difficult to discern that, in the appendages of the tail, the middle division appears again and the outer vanishes; while, on the other hand, in the foremost jaw, the so-called mandible, the inner division only is left; and, in the same way, the parts of the feelers and of the eye-stalks can be identified with those of the legs and jaws.

    Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews Thomas Henry Huxley 1860

Comments

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  • Like Mandalay Bay.

    December 10, 2006

  • Didn't Barry Manilow write a song about this? ;->

    August 10, 2007

  • Every time I hear it, I think of ants and other insects, though.

    December 5, 2007