Word.ws English Dictionary

overjaw

overjaw noun: the upper jaw (superior maxillary).

Noun

overjaw (plural overjaws)

  1. (rare) The upper jaw (superior maxillary).
    • And when they eat, they move the overjaw and nought the nether jaw, and they have no tongue.1926, Arthur Percival Newton, Travel and Travellers of the Middle Ages, page 161
    • The King was now represented with a receding forehead, a lined and haggard face, a long nose, thick lips, slanting eyes, a hanging overjaw, and hollow cheeks.1993, The S S E A Journal, volume 23, page 66

Antonyms of overjaw

Forms of overjaw

pluraloverjaws
alternative formover jaw

Origin of overjaw

From Middle English overjowe, over jawe, a partial calque of earlier Middle English over chavel (“upper jaw”), equivalent to over- + jaw.

Questions about overjaw

What does overjaw mean?
Overjaw means the upper jaw (superior maxillary).
What part of speech is overjaw?
Overjaw is a noun.
What is the plural of overjaw?
The plural of overjaw is overjaws.

Words near overjaw in the dictionary

  1. overissuing
  2. overite
  3. overjacket
  4. overjackets
  5. overjaded
  6. overjaw
  7. overjaws
  8. overjealous
  9. overjealously
  10. overjet
  11. overjets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overjaw (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “overjaw.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overjaw. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.