Word.ws English Dictionary

rictus

/ˈɹɪk.təs/

rictus noun: a bird’s gaping mouth.

Noun

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.
    • 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.1899, Victor Hugo, translated by Paul Maurice, The Memoirs of Victor Hugo

rictus meaning in Tamil

rictus in Tamil

பிளப்பு, வெடிப்பு

Examples of rictus in a sentence

  • A rictus of cruel malignity lit up greyly their old bony faces.1916, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:
  • Sword and shield, bone and steel / Rictus grin / Deaf forever to the battle's din1986, “Deaf Forever”, performed by Motörhead:
  • Valves plugs pumps to erase/ rictus from my face.1990, “Nothingface”, performed by Voivod:
  • His wrinkled, crimson-splattered visage still strains, a jagged-toothed rictus trying to cry out.1993, Wolfenstein 3D, scene: after defeating Hitler (episode 3), level/area: 9:

Forms of rictus

pluralrictus
pluralrictuses

Plural of rictus: rictus or rictuses

Origin of rictus

Learned borrowing from Latin rictus.

Words formed from rictus

Questions about rictus

What does rictus mean?
Rictus means a bird’s gaping mouth.
What is rictus in Tamil?
Rictus in Tamil is பிளப்பு, வெடிப்பு. See Rictus meaning in Tamil.
How do you use rictus in a sentence?
A rictus of cruel malignity lit up greyly their old bony faces.
What part of speech is rictus?
Rictus is a noun.
How do you pronounce rictus?
Rictus is pronounced /ˈɹɪk.təs/.
What is the plural of rictus?
The plural of rictus is rictus.

Words near rictus in the dictionary

  1. ricottas
  2. ricrac
  3. ricracs
  4. RICS
  5. rictal
  6. rictus
  7. rictuses
  8. ricy
  9. Ricœur
  10. Ricœurian
  11. rid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rictus (page history and authors); rictus (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-rictus.wav.

Cite this entry: “rictus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rictus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.