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/mˈændəbəl/ /mˈændɪbəl/ Listen

noun

Mandible n.

(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.

(Zool.) The anterior pair of mouth organs of insects, crustaceaus, and related animals, whether adapted for biting or not.

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Etymology of 'Mandible'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Mandible" Quotes from Famous Books

... that amount of oil. Ere this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I .. started with —that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely different heads. To sum up, then; in the Right Whale's there is no great well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long, slender mandible of a lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale's. Nor in the Sperm Whale are there any of those blinds of bone; no huge lower lip; and scarcely anything of a tongue. Again, the Right Whale has two external spout-holes, the Sperm Whale only one. Look ...

— Moby-Dick • Melville

... but I have always found that though sometimes it may chatter as it flies, as I know it does, yet in general it utters its jarring note sitting on a bough; and I have for many a half hour watched it as it sat with its under mandible quivering, and particularly this summer. It perches usually on a bare twig, with its head lower than its tail, in an attitude well expressed by your draughtsman in the folio "British Zoology." This bird is most punctual in beginning its song exactly at the close of day—so exactly ...

— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... heel, but no thumb; the bill was hooked at the end, the extremity of which seemed to consist of a distinct piece, articulated with the remainder; the nostrils were united, and formed a tube laid on the back of the upper mandible, hence it belonged to the family of ...

— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... name, a name still used in our classifications, entomologists troubled very little about the live animal; they worked on corpses, a dissecting-room method which does not yet seem to be drawing to an end. They would examine with a conscientious eye the antenna, the mandible, the wing, the leg, without asking themselves what use the insect had made of those organs in the exercise of its calling. The animal was classified very nearly after the manner adopted in crystallography. ...

— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre