mandible
n.the lower jaw of a person or animal. It is the part of the face that moves when you open your mouth to speak or eat.
n.the lower jawbone of a vertebrate, including humans. In invertebrates, it refers to the first pair of mouthparts used for biting or chewing.
“The dentist checked the alignment of my mandible.”
“A fractured mandible can make it difficult to speak or eat solid food until the bone heals.”
“The fossil record indicates that the evolution of a more robust mandible allowed early hominins to process tougher plant materials, supporting a shift in dietary habits.”
“In contrast, stout beetles have short, wide heads and powerful mandibles, making them well suited for crushing the shells of relatively small snails.”
“Prior research showed that the zombification might be due to the release of a special chemical that causes the muscles in the infected ants’ mandibles to contract forcefully for that death-grip bite.”
From late Middle English, from Late Latin mandibula (“a jaw”), from mandō (“to chew, masticate”) + -bula (instrument noun suffix).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.