Word.ws English Dictionary

pharyngeal jaws

pharyngeal jaws noun: 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.

pharyngeal jaws: a secondary set of toothed bones or cartilage located deep within a fish's pharynx (or throat),...
Image: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation (after Rita, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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

Origin of pharyngeal jaws

From pharyngeal + jaw.

Questions about pharyngeal jaws

What does pharyngeal jaws mean?
Pharyngeal jaws means 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.
What part of speech is pharyngeal jaws?
Pharyngeal jaws is a noun.

Words near pharyngeal jaws in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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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