Definitions

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

  • adjective Of or relating to a jaw or jawbone, especially the upper one.
  • noun A maxillary bone; a jawbone.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The posterior of the two bones which border the upper jaw in osseous fishes. It usually bears teeth in the soft-rayed fishes, but in the spiny-rayed fishes the teeth are confined to the prem axillary.
  • Of or pertaining in any way to a jaw or jaw-bone; specifically, of or pertaining to the maxilla alone, in any of the special senses of that word: as, the maxillary bones of a vertebrate; the maxillary palps of an insect.
  • noun A jawbone; a maxillary bone, or maxilla.

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

  • adjective Of or relating to the jaw or jawbone
  • noun The jawbone

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

  • adjective of or relating to the upper jaw
  • noun the jaw in vertebrates that is fused to the cranium

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin maxillaris, from maxilla jawbone, jaw.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word maxillary.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.