Dentary Bone

(1) The bone that forms each half of the mandible in man and mammals; in other vertebrates, the anterior element of the secondary jaw. The teeth are usually located on the dentary bone (hence the name). In some animals the teeth on the dentary bone are reduced (in a number of caudate amphibians, tortoises, birds, and monotremate mammals); in lungfish, the dentary bone itself is reduced.

(2) [In Russian], the name sometimes given to the tissue that makes up the principal mass of the tooth, dentin.