Word.ws English Dictionary

pharyngeal jaw

pharyngeal jaw is the singular of pharyngeal jaws.

Meaning of pharyngeal jaws

Noun

pharyngeal jaws pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) A secondary set of toothed bones or cartilage located deep within a fish's pharynx (or throat), behind the primary oral jaws; this second set of jaws are distinct from the main mouth jaws and are typically used to process food (like crushing, grinding, or tearing) and transport it to the esophagus, after the primary jaws have captured the prey.
    • In more advanced actinopterygians, the pharyngeal jaws take on the main role in processing food in addition to transport. Breaking down food ... is facilitated by a variety of changes that enable the pharyngeal jaws to engage more effectively. Teeth are concentrated on the tooth pads of the...2016, Barry Berkovitz, Peter Shellis, chapter 4, in The Teeth of Non-Mammalian Vertebrates, page 49

Forms of pharyngeal jaw

pluralpharyngeal jaws

Questions about pharyngeal jaw

What is pharyngeal jaw the singular of?
Pharyngeal jaw is the singular of pharyngeal jaws.

Words near pharyngeal jaw in the dictionary

  1. pharyngeal
  2. pharyngeal arch
  3. pharyngeal arches
  4. pharyngeal constrictor
  5. pharyngeal constrictors
  6. pharyngeal jaw
  7. pharyngeal jaws
  8. pharyngeal plexus
  9. pharyngeal plexuses
  10. pharyngeal reflex
  11. pharyngeal reflexes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pharyngeal jaw (page history and authors); pharyngeal jaws (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: “pharyngeal jaw.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pharyngeal_jaw. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.