Crossword clues for maxilla
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Maxilla \Max*il"la\, n.; pl. Maxill[ae]. [L., dim. of mala jaw, jawbone.]
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(Anat.)
The bone of either the upper or the under jaw.
The bone, or principal bone, of the upper jaw, the bone of the lower jaw being the mandible. [Now commonly used in this restricted sense.]
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(Zo["o]l.) One of the lower or outer jaws of arthropods.
Note: There are usually two pairs in Crustacea and one pair in insects. In certain insects they are not used as jaws, but may form suctorial organs. See Illust. under Lepidoptera, and Diptera.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"jaw, jawbone," 1670s, from Latin maxilla "upper jaw," diminutive of mala "jaw, cheekbone." "Maxilla stands to mala as axilla, 'armpit,' stands to ala 'wing'" [Klein]. Related: Maxillar; maxilliform.
Wiktionary
n. 1 Either of the two bones that together form the upper jaw. 2 arachnid mouthpart
WordNet
n. the upper jawbone in vertebrates; it is fused to the cranium [syn: upper jaw, upper jawbone]
[also: maxillae (pl)]
Wikipedia
The maxilla (plural: maxillae ) is the upper jawbone formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. The upper jaw includes the palate of the mouth. The two maxillary bones are fused at the inter maxillary suture. This is similar to the mandible (lower jaw), which is also a fusion of two mandibular bones at the mandibular symphysis.
Sometimes as in bony fish, the maxilla is called the "upper maxilla", with the mandible being called the "lower maxilla". Conversely, in birds the upper jaw is often called the "upper mandible".
In arthropods, the maxillae (singular maxilla) are paired structures present on the head as mouthparts in members of the clade Mandibulata, used for tasting and manipulating food. Embryologically, the maxillae are derived from the 4th and 5th segment of the head and the maxillary palps; segmented appendages extending from the base of the maxilla represent the former leg of those respective segments. In most cases, two pairs of maxillae are present and in different arthropod groups the two pairs of maxillae have been variously modified. In crustaceans, the first pair are called maxillulae (singular maxillula).
Modified coxae at the base of the pedipalps in spiders are also called "maxillae", although they are not homologous with mandibulate maxillae.
Usage examples of "maxilla".
Hospital in London there is a congenital tumor which was removed from the anterior mediastinum of a woman of twenty one, and contained portions of skin, fat, sebaceous material, and two pieces of bone similar to the superior maxilla, and in which several teeth were found.
Gurlt has named subjects presenting the total or partial absence of the inferior maxilla, agnathes or hemiagnathes.
Simple atrophy of the inferior maxilla has been seen in man as well as in the lower animals, but is much less frequent than atrophy of the superior maxilla.
Langenbeck reports the case of a young man who had the inferior maxilla so atrophied that in infancy it was impossible for him to take milk from the breast.
The bull-dog, for example, displays this, but in this instance the deformity is really superior brachygnathism, the superior maxilla being arrested in development.
The facial and carotid arteries had to be ligated and part of the inferior maxilla removed, but the patient insisted upon having the operations performed without an anesthetic, and afterward informed the operator that she had experienced great pleasure throughout the whole procedure.
Von Langenbeck of Berlin mentions an instance of fracture of the superior maxilla, in which the eyeball was so much displaced as to lodge in the antrum of Highmore.
In order to ascertain how far it might be possible for a bar of the size causing the injury to traverse the skull in the track assigned to it, Bigelow procured a common skull in which the zygomatic arches were barely visible from above, and having entered a drill near the left angle of the inferior maxilla, he passed it obliquely upward to the median line of the cranium just in front of the junction of the sagittal and coronal sutures.
A part of the right malar bone, the two superior maxillary bones, the nasal bones, the cartilage, the vomer, the middle lamina of the ethmoid, the left maxillary bone, a portion of the left zygomatic arch, and a great portion of the inferior maxilla were carried away, or comminuted, and all the soft parts correspondingly lacerated.
There was a part of the posterior region of the right superior maxilla, but the left was entirely gone--in fact, the man presented an enormous triangular opening in the center of the face, as shown by the accompanying illustration.
Middle Pleistocene age, and the scientists working on the cave suggest a late Middle Pleistocene dating, for the morphology of the maxilla shows less primitive features than does that of Sinanthropus.
Neither Ambrose Pare, applying for the first time since Celsus, after an interval of fifteen centuries, a ligature to an artery, nor Dupuytren, about to open an abscess in the brain, nor Gensoul when he first took away the superior maxilla, had hearts that trembled, hands that shook, minds so strained as Monsieur Bovary when he approached Hippolyte, his tenotome between his fingers.
When he set the maxilla on the mandible, matching the grooves and worn surfaces where they met, we could see the extent of her overbite and the crooked eyetooth on the left.
She had numerous fillings and the forensic odontist who examined the maxilla and mandible thought the work was probably done in the two years before her death.
She grabbed the stiff manila envelope that held the X rays the coroner had taken of the maxilla, the upper jaw still intact on the skull.