What’s the groove below your nose called?

Ever wonder what the name for the cleft between your nose and mouth is called? Did you know there’s a name for where your mouth turns from lip color to skin color? Here are some slang and scientific names for a few of the bits on your phiz.

Phiz – Slang for a person’s face or expression

Keeker – Slang for one who peeps, a surreptitious observer others, eyeball

Tragus – The small piece of thick cartilage that partially covers the ear canal

Chute – (aka Slide) A sloping channel for conveying things to a lower level. The space of flesh on the side of the nose as it runs down to the cheek, named in portraits class last week so it can be considered in relationship to the more show stopping features of the face such as the eye and the nostril.

Schnozz – (or schnoz) Slang for a person’s nose. Surprisingly, not a Yiddish word. The Yiddish word for nose is “noz”. “Schnozz” might be a mispronunciation of a Yiddish word for “snout”. The word is likely to have come from German.

Nasolabial sulcus – The two folds of skin that range from each side of the nose towards the corners of the mouth.

Philtrum – The vertical groove between the base of the nose and the border of the upper lip.

Oral commissure – The corners of the mouth. A tiny facial area, often uncontrollable, with an enormous effect on a person’s perceived mood. Google oral commissure lifting.

Vermilion border – The demarcation where the mouth turns from lip color to skin color

Mentolabial sulcus – The sometimes indistinct line separating the lower lip from the chin.

Salt-cellar – Slang for the small round hollow between the collarbones at the base of the neck— in particular a young woman’s neck. In reference to the small bowls of salt used in kitchens. (That hollow’s proper anatomical name is the suprasternal notch.)

You’re reading a V. Note, written by Ruthie V, the director of the Seattle Artist League. The League is an art school for the busy nurse, tech geek, and mom with a long lost art degree. We offer engaging online classes in drawing and painting. Join us! Find your class: https://www.seattleartistleague.com/product-category/d-online-classes/