jawfallen

English

Etymology

From jaw +‎ fallen.

Adjective

jawfallen (comparative more jawfallen, superlative most jawfallen)

1. (archaic) Dejected, dispirited.
   • 1897, George Morgan, John Littlejohn, of J.: Being in Particular an Account of ..., page 106:

     He was pitifully jawfallen. As the guards jogged him out of the room he waved me a farewell.

   • 1907, John Florio, transl., edited by Adolphe Cohn, [Michel de] Montaigne: The Essays, page 234:

     Every man hath heard the tale of the Picard, who being upon the ladder ready to be thrown down, there was a wench presented unto him, with this offer […] that if he would marry her, his life should be saved, [...and] a man of Denmark, who being adjudged to have his head cut off, and being upon the scaffold, had the like condition offered him, but refused it, because the wench offered him was jawfallen, long-cheeked, and sharp-nosed.

2. (obsolete) Having a "fallen" or locked jaw (and hence sometimes unable to speak), variously attributed to dejection (the previous sense) or lockjaw.
   • 1703, A voyage to the Antipodes, a simile, in a dialogue..., page 16:

     Legion is a yelping Cur, he only made a noise behind their Backs, but durst not look them in the Face. Indeed then he did make a slip, or broke his Halter, but now he's Chain'd or Jawfallen, for I han't heard of him never since.

   • 1759, Thomas Percival, A Collection of the Yearly Bills of Mortality, from 1657 to 1758 inclusive, for the year 1662:

     Headmouldshot and Mouldfallen — 34

     Jawfallen — 2

     Jaundies — 76

   • 1970, Seventeenth-century News, volumes 28-31, page 13:

     [Causes of death recorded in London included] tympany (drumlike gas-caused abdominal swelling), bleach or scald (skin diseases), an evil complexion of humours by eating of rawe fruite, jawfallen (lockjaw), chincowgh (whooping cough), and strangullion (urinary retention).
     but contrast Julia Bamford, Silvia Cavalieri, Giuliana Diani, Variation and Change in Spoken and Written Discourse (2016), page 206, which says "popular names used to refer to common or rare diseases were rather obscure: rising of the lights (croup), jawfaln (depression) and King's evil (scrofula, commonly believed to be cured by the touch of the king)."

References

• “jaw-fallen”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.