The purpose of this study was to analyse the magnitude and direction of lateral forces exerted on the abutment tooth of a complete mandibular overdenture. A newly developed transducer was used for measuring forces. It was small enough to be embedded in the lower denture base, and could detect the magnitude and direction of forces. Five subjects, 38 to 77 years of age, with an edentulous maxilla and one or two canines remaining in the mandible were selected for this experiment. An upper complete denture and a lower complete overdenture with only one abutment tooth were fabricated for each subject. Forces exerted on the abutment tooth were measured during tapping and chewing of kamaboko (a Japanese cooked fish paste with soft consistency) and also peanuts, a few days and about 20 days after the denture insertion. The following results were obtained: (i) the average magnitude of lateral forces ranged from 0.5 to 2.0 kgf, and there were significant differences of the mean value between subjects; (ii) lateral forces were mainly observed on an imaginary line drawn through the experimental tooth (lower canine) and the opposite retromolar pad. There were no significant differences between the first and the second measurement.