mandible
Americannoun
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the bone of the lower jaw.
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(in birds)
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the lower part of the bill.
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mandibles, the upper and lower parts of the bill.
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(in arthropods) one of the first pair of mouthpart appendages, typically a jawlike biting organ, but styliform or setiform in piercing and sucking species.
noun
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the lower jawbone in vertebrates See jaw
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either of a pair of mouthparts in insects and other arthropods that are usually used for biting and crushing food
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ornithol either the upper or the lower part of the bill, esp the lower part
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The lower part of the jaw in vertebrate animals.
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See more at skeleton
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One of the pincerlike mouthparts of insects and other arthropods.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of mandible
1375–1425; late Middle English < Late Latin mandibula jaw, equivalent to mandi- (combining form of Latin mandere to chew) + -bula noun suffix of means
Explanation
Do you know where your mandible is located? Your mandible is your jawbone. Without a mandible, you wouldn't be able to eat pizza. In vertebrates (including humans), the mandible is the lower, hinged part of the jaw; in birds, both the top and bottom sections of the beak are called mandibles. The Latin root is mandere, "to chew," and chewing is the main function of the mandible, which holds your lower teeth in place and swings freely up and down.
Vocabulary lists containing mandible
Gross, Anatomy!
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Human Anatomy and Physiology - High School
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Animals (Zoology) - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
She’s married to a more central character, Douglas, the Mandible family’s 97-year-old patriarch.
From Time • Sep. 14, 2016
Carter Mandible is a newspaperman by trade, put out to pasture when the Times went bust.
From The New Yorker • Jun. 30, 2016
“Only use the dirty water to shower,” said Florence Mandible.
From The Guardian • May 29, 2016
Figure 7.15 Isolated Mandible The mandible is the only moveable bone of the skull.
From Textbooks • Jun. 19, 2013
At eight o'clock in the morning the Bonadventure set sail, and ran rapidly towards North Mandible Cape, for the wind was right astern and freshening rapidly.
From Abandoned by Verne, Jules
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
