rictus
Americannoun
-
the gape of the mouth of a bird.
-
the gaping or opening of the mouth.
noun
-
the gap or cleft of an open mouth or beak
-
a fixed or unnatural grin or grimace, as in horror or death
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of rictus
1750–60; < Latin: wide-open mouth, equivalent to rig-, variant stem of ringī to open the mouth wide + -tus suffix of v. action.
Explanation
A rictus is a frozen, fake smile. If the star of a play finds herself overcome by stage fright, she might forget her lines and stand, trembling, her mouth twisted into a rictus. The word rictus most often describes a smile that doesn't convey delight or happiness — instead, it's a kind of horrified, involuntary grin. Your smile might freeze on your face in a rictus during a truly terrifying amusement park ride, or your discomfort as you watch your friend sing badly in a talent show might be reflected in your rictus of a grin. In Latin, rictus means "open mouth," from rict-, or "gaped."
Vocabulary lists containing rictus
A Thousand Splendid Suns
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
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Ready Player One
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He stood about 25 feet tall, ax in hand, wearing a red hat and rictus grin.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
Up front, a fierce rictus of sterling-bright, illuminated vertical bars is capped with a chrome plate embossed with the word “Maybach.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 2, 2026
In 2004, the couple staged a photocall skiing together to demonstrate a united front - with Victoria giving what Lampert describes as a pained "rictus grin".
From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2025
She exudes all the charisma of an A.I.-generated character, her makeup-caked rictus unmoving from the lips up.
From Slate ● Jan. 20, 2025
Penny’s mouth was frozen in a rictus of a smile.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
This image was not exactly a chilling admonitory study in pure evil, akin to Mephistopheles or Dorian Gray; it was far closer to the what-me-worry/get-out-of-my-way rictuses of a Gob Bluth or a George W Bush.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 31, 2015
You’ll then be forced to laugh aloud on cue—looking around in discomfort at the rictuses of your neighbors.
From Slate ● May 10, 2015
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
