mascella

Forms

mascella f (plural mascelle)^[1] Old forms include macella, masciella, masella and massello.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin maxilla (“jaw”), a diminutive of māla (“upper jaw; cheek”).^[3][4][5][1] The Latin ending -illa was replaced by the Italian suffix -ella.^[6][7] The Battaglia dictionary calls the word semi-learned.^[2] Latin already had the adjective maxillāris, from which mascellare comes.^[3][4]

The word is pan-Romance: Old French maissele, Old Occitan maisela, Spanish mejilla (“cheek”), Sardinian massiḍḍa (“cheek”) and Romanian măsea (“molar”).^[4][8] It was borrowed into Basque as masaila (“cheek”).^[7][8] Giuliano Bonfante noted that in the western Romance area, from Ladin and northern Italy to Spain, Gascony and the Nuoro district of Sardinia, the word means “cheek”, and thought it may once have had that sense in all the West.^[3]

The Latin word māla goes back to Proto-Italic *smakslā.^[9][1] De Vaan traces it to Proto-Indo-European *smḱ-slo- (“beard, chin”).^[9] Others derive it from the root of mandō (“to chew”), as Proto-Italic *mandslā, “the chewing parts”,^[9][1] and Nocentini and Devoto connect it with the root of macerare.^[4][10] The diminutive maxilla is formed like āxilla beside āla.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Bono Giamboni, who died before 1292, uses mascella of an animal's jaw.^[3][4] Rustico di Filippo, before 1300, has it for the human bone of the face in which the upper teeth are set.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th century mascella also meant “cheek”, the sense the word has in much of the western Romance area.^[7][3] Boccaccio has a man sit thinking with his hand on his mascella.^[11] Derivatives followed early: mascellata, a slap on the cheek, and mascellone, a big jaw and later a cuff, are both of the 14th century.^[7] In Abruzzo mascellè de lu culu means “buttock”, a shift also seen in Provençal and Romanian words for the cheek.^[7]

Anatomy now distinguishes the upper mascella from the lower jaw, the mandibola, though in ordinary use mascella covers both.^[12][11] The word was extended to the jaws of pincers, vices and crushers, to the mouthparts of insects and other invertebrates, and to the plates that held the flint in a flintlock.^[5][13] The adjective mascellare is recorded in the 14th century, and as a noun for the jawbone in 1828.^[3]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses mascella of an animal's jaw.^[3]
• Before 1300 – Rustico di Filippo uses it for the human jaw.^[3]
• 1300s – Mascella is also used for the cheek, and mascellata “slap” appears.^[7]
• 1300s – The adjective mascellare appears in the vernacular Bible.^[3]
• 1828 – Mascellare is recorded as a noun for the jawbone.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) jaw: either of the two bony structures of the face in which the teeth are set, in the strict sense the upper one, the lower being the mandibola: Il pugile ha preso un colpo alla mascella.^[5][12][11]
2. (zoology) A mouthpart of annelids, arthropods and other invertebrates, made of jointed pieces.^[5]
3. (technology) Either of the two gripping parts of a tool such as pincers or a vice, or of the plates of a crusher.^[5][13][12]
4. (historical) Either of the two iron plates that held the flint in a flintlock gun.^[5]

Word family

• mascellare
• smascellare
• mascellone
• mascelluto

Related words

• mandibola
• Latin maxilla

Usage notes

Lavorare di mascelle is a joking way of saying “to eat greedily”.^[13][11] A boxer with a mascella di vetro (glass jaw) cannot take blows to the chin.^[13][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 9, 862
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 642
7. ^ a b c d e f g Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2381
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier