maxilla

From Middle English, from Latin māxilla (“the jawbone, jaw”), diminutive of māla (“the cheekbone, jaw”).

• IPA^(key): /mækˈsɪl.ə/
• Rhymes: -ɪlə

maxilla (plural maxillae or (obsolete) maxillæ or maxillas)

1. (anatomy, zootomy) Synonym of jaw.

   Synonym: jawbone

   1. An upper jaw especially of humans and other mammals in which the bony elements are closely fused.

      Synonym: maxillary bone

      Coordinate term: mandible

   2. (anatomy) Either of the two bones that lie with one on each side of the upper jaw lateral to the premaxilla and that in higher vertebrates bear most of the teeth.
2. (zootomy) One of the first or second pair of mouthparts posterior to the mandibles in many arthropods that are used for tasting and manipulating food.

   Synonym: (in arachnids) endite

• “maxilla”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “maxilla”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Picture dictionary
calvāria cerebrum oculus labium nāsus ōs mentum māxilla auris tempus collum
Click on labels in the image.

Diminutive of māla (“the cheekbone, jaw”), from its reconstructed Proto-Italic form *smakslā^[1] and the diminutive suffix *-elos via the following sequence of regular sound changes: *-kslelā > *-ksl̥lā > *-ksillā.^[2] Compare the formation of the following diminutives: āla–āxilla, ōlla–auxilla, paulus–pauxillus, pālus–pāxillus, vēlum–vēxillum. An alternative etymology of māla, supported by Thurneysen and Leumann, reconstructs its original form as *mandslā, from the root of mandō (“to chew”); if this is correct, the -x- in the diminutive must have instead been introduced by analogy to āxilla.^[3][4] Synchronically, māxilla can be viewed as ending in the Latin diminutive suffix -illus.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /maːkˈsil.la/, [mäːkˈs̠ɪlːʲä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /makˈsil.la/, [mäkˈsilːä]

māxilla f (genitive māxillae); first declension

1. diminutive of māla:
   1. (anatomy) the jaw, jawbone, bone of the upper jaw
   2. (anatomy) the lower part of the face, the jaws
      • Aulus Cornelius Celsus, De Medicina 8.1:

        Maxilla vero est molle os; eaque una est, cuius eadem et media et ima pars mentum est, a quo utrimque procedit ad tempora; solaque ea movetur: nam malae cum toto osse, quod superiores dentes exigit, immobiles sunt.

        • 1938 translation by W. G. Spencer

          But the lower jaw is a soft bone and a single one, of which the chin forms the middle and lowest portion, whence it is continued on the two sides to the temples; and it alone is movable, for the cheek-bones with all that bone which produces the upper teeth are immobile ― published online at LacusCurtius by Bill Thayer as Celsus: On Medicine, Book VIII

      • Aulus Cornelius Celsus, De Medicina 4.7:

        Si per haec parum proficitur, ultimum est incidere satis altis plagis sub ipsis maxillis supra collum, vel in palato citra uvam, vel eas venas, quae sub lingua sunt, ut per ea vulnera morbus erumpat.

        • 1938 translation by W. G. Spencer

          If there is little effect from these remedies, the last resource is to make sufficiently deep incisions into the upper part of the neck under the lower jaw, or into the palate in front of the uvula, or into the veins under the tongue, in order that the disease may discharge through the incisions. ― published online at LacusCurtius by Bill Thayer as Celsus: On Medicine, Book IV

First-declension noun.

• māxillāris (adjective)
• māxillō (verb)

• “maxilla”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “maxilla”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• maxilla in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• maxilla in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

maxilla f (plural maxillas)

1. Obsolete spelling of maxila.