rictus.

1. A rigid grin or grimace with the mouth open or the lips parted.

2. The opening or gape of a mouth, especially a bird's mouth.

3. The edge of an animal's upper or lower jaw, or the angle where the jaws meet.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• a frozen rictus
• rictus grin
• rictus of fear

On the page

His courteous smile settled into a rictus that did not change when the lights failed.

Usage notes

Primary category: horror / gothic literary. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Singular rictus; plural rictus or rictuses. Commonness: uncommon (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Mouth gape; edge/margin/meeting angle of animal mandibles; rigid grin or grimace with open mouth or parted lips. Literary use explicitly discussed. Individual writer usefulness checked for a distinct physical, ritual, facial or acoustic function. Definitions/examples are original; genre suitability is not an inherent emotional rating. Writing functions: precise physical or ritual description, gothic scene construction.