1 [C] either of the two bones at the bottom of the face that contain the teeth and move when you talk or eat:
the top / upper jaw * the bottom / lower jaw
2 [sing.] the lower part of the face; the lower jaw:
He has a strong square jaw. * The punch broke my jaw.
3 (jaws) [pl.] the mouth and teeth of a person or an animal:
The alligator's jaws snapped shut.
4 (jaws) [pl.] the parts of a tool or machine that are used to hold things tightly:
the jaws of a vice
IDIOMS
sb's jaw dropped / fell / sagged used to say that sb suddenly looked surprised, shocked or disappointed
the jaws of a tunnel, etc. the narrow entrance to a tunnel, etc., especially one that looks dangerous
the jaws of death, defeat, etc. (literary) used to describe an unpleasant situation that almost happens:
The team snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. * They narrowly escaped from the jaws of death.
verb [V] (informal, often disapproving) to talk, especially to talk a lot or for a long time
Rate this entry
About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for jaw is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is jaw a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, jaw is tagged as noun.
Does jaw appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — jaw appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.