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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
lock-jaw

also lockjaw, 1786, earlier locked-jaw (1765), popular name for trismus, also applied to tetanus, from lock (v.) + jaw.

Usage examples of "lock-jaw".

The bull-terrier seemed to have developed lock-jaw and Mr O'Brain rabies.

The victim of dwarfdom, the wretched Shelyid's runtish body was ill served and thus doubly cursed by bad nerves, the slightest agitation of which would produce the most indecorous results: pox, palsy, jitters, quivers, tremors, convulsions, paroxysms, fevers, the staggers, the jerks, shortness of breath, frequent and uncontrolled excretion, irregularities of the pulse, lock-jaw, ague, fidgets, timorousness, and a general feeling of social inferiority.