Rhoda KoenigBill ZehmeMichael Hogan
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Rictus began its English career in the late 17th century as a technical term for the mouth of an animal, the new science of zoology clearly calling for some Latin to set its lingo apart from the language of farmers. In Latin, rictus means "an open mouth"; it comes from the verb ringi, meaning "to open the mouth." Zoologists couldn't keep the word to themselves, though. English speakers liked its sound too much, and they thought it would be good for referring to a gaping grin or grimace. James Joyce used the word in both Ulysses (1922) and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), writing in the latter, "Creatures were in the field…. Goatish creatures with human faces…. A rictus of cruel malignity lit up greyly their old bony faces."
Examples of rictus in a Sentence
Beatrice Loayza, Vulture, 12 July 2024
McAvoy’s gift for a rictus grin and a swaggering machismo that eases you into feeling comfortable, only to twist on a 180 into pure psychopathy, is well-played here.
—Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 10 Sep. 2024
In its promos and trailers, Neon has deftly concealed what Cage’s character — a basement dweller who lives for the devil and has stringy, white hair and a rictus grin — actually looks like.
—Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 8 July 2024
These include a chocolate-brown safe about five feet tall that reveals itself to be full of bobbleheads, the tottering rictus of Suns-era Stephon Marbury peering out at me from the dark.
—Giri Nathan, Vulture, 22 Mar. 2024
Coverage of his personal appearances focused on his obvious discomfort in meeting with strangers and his fruitless efforts to laugh or even crack a smile, which tended to produce only a hideous facial rictus.
—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 22 Jan. 2024
Portman and Moore don’t look like average women but resemble drag queens specializing in stealthy passion and uneasy self-control — one a professional parasite and the other a pathetic sociopath, each fronting rictus grins.
—Armond White, National Review, 10 Jan. 2024
Charles is all neurosis and shame, hunched over, face frozen in a rictus of repulsion at his own existence, worried constantly about rejection.
—Isaac Butler, The New Yorker, 1 Dec. 2023
But when a pretty grad student comes in one day complaining of an evil, smirking presence that's followed her for years, then suddenly breaks into a frozen rictus of a grin and essentially slices her own face off in the waiting room, Rose is more than shaken.
—Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 30 Sep. 2022
Dictionary Entries Near rictus
Cite this Entry
“Rictus.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rictus. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
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