masseter

American  

[ma-see-ter] / mæˈsi tər /

noun

Anatomy.

1. a short, thick, masticatory muscle, the action of which assists in closing the jaws by raising the mandible or lower jaw.

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masseter British  

/ mæˈsiːtə /

noun

1. anatomy a muscle of the cheek used in moving the jaw, esp in chewing

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Other Word Forms

• masseteric
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of masseter

1660–70; < New Latin < Greek massētḗr, variant of masētḗr chewer, masseter, equivalent to masē-, variant stem of masâsthai to chew + -tēr agentive suffix

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

masseter

Even though it's not routinely offered on the NHS, Ella decided to pay her dentist to inject Botox into her masseter muscles - the ones that control her jaw.

From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026

About 40 units are needed for the masseter muscles to help soothe teeth clenching.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 1, 2026

There was also evidence of an evolutionary connection between the extramandibular fat and the masseter muscle, which in humans connects the lower jawbone to the cheekbones and is a key muscle involved in chewing.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 8, 2024

The rise of processed foods — beginning with the invention of canning in the early 1800s — softened diets to the point that the masseter muscles barely had to do any work when chewing.

From New York Times ● Aug. 20, 2020

Surely hard biting is sufficiently appreciable by the person bitten without any visual admeasurement of the masseter muscles or the zygomatic arches.

From Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin by W. P. (William Platt) Ball

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