cheekbone

• cheek bone

From Middle English chekebon, chekbone, from Old English ċēacbān (“cheekbone”); equivalent to cheek +‎ bone. Compare Dutch kaakbeen (“jawbone”).

cheekbone (plural cheekbones)

1. The small prominent bone of the cheek.
   • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

     She was like a Beardsley Salome, he had said. And indeed she had the narrow eyes and the high cheekbone of that creature, and as nearly the sinuosity as is compatible with human symmetry.

   • 1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 113:

     A youngish-looking man came up to him, and aggressive-looking type with a hook mouth, a lantern nose, and small beady little cheekbones.

• malar bone
• zygoma
• zygomatic bone