jawbone
noun, verb
Forms jawbones jawboning jawboned jaw bone jaw-bone chawe bone chaw-bone chawbone
- noun (countable) The bone of the lower jaw; the mandible.
- noun (countable) Any of the bones in the lower or upper jaw.
- noun (countable, singular or plural, music) A shaken musical instrument (an idiophone) made from the jawbone of an animal and shaken such that the teeth vibrate in their sockets to produce sound.
- noun (uncountable, slang, archaic) Credit.
- verb (ambitransitive) To talk persistently in an attempt to persuade somebody to cooperate.
- verb (transitive) (especially of regulatory agencies) To try to persuade (someone) through implied threats of punitive action, such as tighter regulatory control.
Synonyms
inferior maxillary bone lower jaw mandible submaxilla dentary dentary bone maxilla mandibula mandibular bone lower jawbone jowl shmooze shmoose schmooze schmoose
Etymology
From Middle English jawe bone, a partial calque of earlier Middle English chawlbone, chawylbon, chavylbone, chawle boon, chavyl bon (“jaw bone”, literally “chavel bone”), see chavel-bone; equivalent to jaw + bone.
Webster’s 1913
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “jawbone”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details