jawbone
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English
Alternative forms
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.
Pronunciation
Noun
jawbone (countable and uncountable, plural jawbones)
- (countable) The bone of the lower jaw; the mandible.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Judges 15:14–17:
- 14 ¶ And when he came vnto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily vpon him, and the cordes that were vpon his armes became as flaxe that was burnt with fire, & his bands loosed from off his hands.
15 And he found a new iawbone of an asse, and put foorth his hand, and tooke it, and slewe a thousand men therewith.
16 And Samson said, With the iawbone of an asse, heapes vpon heapes, with the iaw of an asse haue I slaine a thousand men.
17 And it came to passe when he had made an end of speaking, that hee cast away the iaw bone out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-Lehi.
- (countable) Any of the bones in the lower or upper jaw.
- (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.
- (uncountable, slang, archaic) Credit.
- 1862 October 21, Times Correspondent:
- We have a few persons whose pockets are to let—men who have more complaints than dollars—individuals who, in digger's parlance, live on jawbone (credit), and are always to be found at saloons; a class of men who, when they are here, wish themselves yonder, and when yonder, wish themselves back.
Synonyms
- (the bone of the lower jaw): inferior maxillary bone, lower jaw, mandible, submaxilla
- (any bone in the lower or upper jaw): dentary, dentary bone, maxilla
Derived terms
Translations
bone of the lower jaw
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any of the bones in the jaw
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Verb
jawbone (third-person singular simple present jawbones, present participle jawboning, simple past and past participle jawboned)
- (ambitransitive) To talk persistently in an attempt to persuade somebody to cooperate.
- Coordinate terms: bullshit, sweet-talk
- 2022 July 26, William Meny & Paul Simms, “The Night Market” (16:56 from the start), in What We Do in the Shadows, season 4, episode 4, spoken by Ringmaster (Nick Corirossi):
- “We got a winner. He stole her glasses and she couldn't see. Boring.” (crowd jeering) “Give me my glasses back.” “I'm gonna give your glasses to your master.” “Lot of jawboning going on.” “Okay? Here you go. It was nice meeting you, okay?” “...a little less hot air, but I present to you our new familiar champion, this guy right here. Never caught his name, never caught his name.”
- (transitive) (especially of regulatory agencies) To try to persuade (someone) through implied threats of punitive action, such as tighter regulatory control.
- Coordinate terms: arm-twist, strong-arm; threaten
Derived terms
Translations
to persuade
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