The mandibular lateral incisor is the

tooth A tooth (: teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, tea ...

located distally (away from the midline of the

face The face is the front of the head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may affect th ...

) from both mandibular central incisors of the

mouth A mouth also referred to as the oral is the body orifice through which many animals ingest food and animal communication#Auditory, vocalize. The body cavity immediately behind the mouth opening, known as the oral cavity (or in Latin), is also t ...

and mesially (toward the midline of the face) from both mandibular canines. As with all

incisor Incisors (from Latin ''incidere'', "to cut") are the front teeth present in most mammals. They are located in the premaxilla above and on the mandible below. Humans have a total of eight (two on each side, top and bottom). Opossums have 18, wher ...

s, their function is for

shearing Sheep shearing is the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a '' shearer''. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year (depending upon dialect, a sheep may be sai ...

or cutting food during

mastication Chewing or mastication is the process by which food is comminution, crushed and ground by the teeth. It is the first step in the process of digestion, allowing a greater surface area for digestive enzymes to break down the foods. During the mast ...

, commonly known as chewing. There are no

cusp A cusp is the most pointed end of a curve. It often refers to cusp (anatomy), a pointed structure on a tooth. Cusp or CUSP may also refer to: Mathematics * Cusp (singularity), a singular point of a curve * Cusp catastrophe, a branch of bifu ...

s on the teeth. Instead, the surface area of the tooth used in eating is called an incisal ridge or incisal edge. Though relatively the same, there are some minor differences between the

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

(baby) mandibular lateral incisor and that of the permanent mandibular lateral incisor. In the universal system of notation, the deciduous mandibular lateral incisors are designated by a letter written in uppercase. The right deciduous mandibular lateral incisor is known as "Q", and the left one is known as "N". The international notation has a different system of notation. Thus, the right deciduous mandibular lateral incisor known as "82", and the left one is known as "72". In the universal system of notation, the permanent mandibular lateral incisors are designated by a number. The right permanent mandibular lateral incisor is known as "26", and the left one is known as "23". In the

Palmer notation Palmer notation (sometimes called the "Military System" and named for 19th-century American dentist Dr. Corydon Palmer from Warren, Ohio) is a dental notation (tooth numbering system). Despite the adoption of the FDI World Dental Federation notati ...

, a number is used in conjunction with a symbol designating in which quadrant the tooth is found. For this tooth, the left and right lateral incisors would have the same number, "2", but the right one would have the symbol, "┐", over it, while the left one would have, "┌". The international notation has a different numbering system than the previous two, and the right permanent mandibular lateral incisor is known as "42", and the left one is known as "32".

References

*Ash, Major M. and Stanley J. Nelson, 2003. ''Wheeler’s Dental Anatomy, Physiology, and Occlusion.'' 8th edition. Types of teeth Human mouth anatomy {{Tooth anatomy