rictus

From Latin rictus, participle of ringor (“open the mouth wide”)

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪk.təs/, /ˈɹɪk.tʊs/

rictus (plural rictus or rictuses)

1. A bird's gaping mouth.
2. The throat of a calyx.
3. Any open-mouthed expression.

   His face was a rictus of sheer delight.

• 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.

• 1986 - Motörhead, Deaf Forever

  Sword and shield, bone and steel, Rictus grin, Deaf forever to the battle's din.

• 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.

• rictal

• Curtis, citrus, rustic

rictus m (plural rictus)

1. rictus

From Latin rictus

• IPA^(key): /ʁik.tys/

rictus m (plural rictus)

1. rictus; grimace

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

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈrik.tus/, [ˈrɪk.tʊs]

rictus m (genitive rictūs); fourth declension

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

Fourth-declension noun.

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

• citrus

• 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)

rictus m (plural rictus)

1. sneer; wince