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mandible
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The lower jawbone (see jaw) of a vertebrate skull; the upper jawbone is the maxilla. The mandible is the only moveable bone of the skull. It is U-shaped as seen from above and bears the lower teeth on its upper surface. It is connected to the base of the skull at the temporomandibular joints, which can be felt in the cheek just in front of the earlobe. Powerful muscles, arising from the temple on either side, attach to the mandible for movements needed in chewing and biting; other muscles allow side-to-side and downward movement. Through the late teens, the human mandible and lower face show a much greater degree of growth than the upper part of the face and head.
The mandible is composed of well condensed and well calcified bone, which makes it resistant to the process of organic breakdown. For this reason, there are many fossil mandibles as compared with other bones. - One of the pair of mouth-parts of an insect, crustacean, or myriapod, which usually does most of the work of biting and crushing food.
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