Jaws

How to spell jaws

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce jaws

What does jaws mean?

1. nounThe pair of bony structures that form the framework of the mouth and hold the teeth.
2. nounThe two gripping parts of a tool such as a vice, clamp, or pliers.

Jaws in a sentence

• The dentist asked her to relax her jaws before the examination.

• He tightened the jaws of the vice around the metal pipe.

• The crocodile snapped its jaws shut on the floating log.

• The jaws of the pliers had worn smooth after years of use.

Where does jaws come from?

Language of origin: French

The word jaw appears in English in the late 1300s, and its exact origin is genuinely murky, which is why scholars hedge. The most popular theory links it to the Old French joue, meaning 'cheek', which would explain the early sense referring to the lower part of the face. A competing idea connects it to the native English verb 'chaw', an old form of 'chew', since the jaws are precisely what we chew with, and that overlap of sound and sense may well have shaped the modern form. Whatever the true root, the meaning settled on the bony structures that frame the mouth, and the simple plural 'jaws' came to describe the pair of them working together. The same plural also drifted into mechanical use for the gripping parts of a tool or vice. Because the spelling is short and phonetic, the only mild snag is remembering that the vowel sound is written 'aw'.

How the word is built

• jaw (root: the bony framework of the mouth)
• -s (plural)