English

Noun

rictus ‎(plural rictuses)

1. A bird's gaping mouth
2. Any open-mouthed expression

   'His face was a rictus of sheer delight.

Quotations

• 1899 - Victor Hugo, The Memoirs of Victor Hugo

  Amid a thick, bristling beard, a nose like an owl's beak and a mouth whose corners were drawn by a wild-beast-like rictus were just discernible.

• 1916 - James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

  A rictus of cruel malignity lit up greyly their old bony faces.

• 1990 - Voivod, Nothingface

  Valves plugs pumps to erase/ rictus from my face.

• 1993 – Wolfenstein 3D, Episode 3, Level 9, after defeating Hitler

  The absolute incarnation of evil, Adolf Hitler, lies at your feet in a pool of his own blood. His wrinkled, crimson-splattered visage still strains, a jagged-toothed rictus trying to cry out. Insane even in death. Your lips pinched in bitter victory, you kick his head off his remains and spit on his corpse.

• 2001 — Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl, p 56

  It squinted at her through the hated light, its brow a rictus of pain and fear.

• 2008 — Sean Williams, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, p 81

  The apprentice watched his Master, pain twisting his features into a rictus.

Derived terms

• rictal

Translations

Anagrams

• citrus, Curtis, rustic

Catalan

Noun

rictus m ‎(plural rictus)

1. rictus

Latin

Etymology

From ringor ‎(“I gape, show my teeth, snarl; I am vexed”) +‎ -tus ‎(action noun forming suffix).

Noun

rictus m ‎(genitive rictūs); fourth declension

1. the gaping of a mouth, as when laughing or yawning

Inflection

Fourth declension.

Descendants

• English: rictus
• Portuguese: ricto
• Spanish: rictus

References

• rictus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• rictus in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• RICTUS in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)