facial angle

American  

noun

1. Craniometry. the angle formed by a line from nasion to prosthion at its intersection with the plane of the Frankfurt horizontal.

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facial angle British  

noun

1. the angle formed between a line from the base of the nose to the opening of the ear and a line from the base of the nose to the most prominent part of the forehead: often used in comparative anthropology

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Etymology

Origin of facial angle

First recorded in 1815–25

Example Sentences

At the corner of the street, you read the possibility of each passenger, in the facial angle, in the complexion, in the depth of his eye.

From The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature Representative Prose and Verse by Various

I judged it to be a dim idea of the facial angle.

From Los Gringos Or, An Inside View of Mexico and California, with Wanderings in Peru, Chili, and Polynesia by Wise, H. A. (Henry Augustus)

Don't be frightened, Tom; I 'm not going off into the "ethnologies," and not a word will you hear from me about the facial angle, or frontal development!

From The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I by Lever, Charles James

The brow was smooth and young, the facial angle high, the hair, now no longer under the inevitable turban, smooth and black, with just a suspicion of frost above the temples.

From Sons and Fathers by Edwards, Harry Stillwell

He supposes that a race of quadrumanous apes gradually acquired the upright position in walking, with a corresponding modification of the feet and facial angle.

From Evolution, Old & New Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, as compared with that of Charles Darwin by Butler, Samuel