rictus

Examples Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of rictus The entire final sequence, which sees Carter, with a rictus grin, slaughtering his wife in the kitchen, envisions the self-destruction of the nuclear family. 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
Recent Examples of Synonyms for rictus
Noun
  • Ben Daniels’s charming smirk has not convinced me, though.
    Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 1 Oct. 2024
  • The smirk of a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered.
    Zack Sharf, Variety, 1 Aug. 2024
Noun
  • Early 2021: Shipping snarls and worker shortages from the coronavirus pandemic continue to hurt the supply April 2021: Inflation rates cross 4% and increase rapidly Early 2022: Energy and food prices spike due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
    Trefis Team, Forbes, 1 Nov. 2024
  • At the same time, many factors that affect the nation's economic performance are beyond the president's control, from shocks like Russia's invasion of Ukraine to the pandemic's supply-chain snarls, which contributed to the highest U.S. inflation in 40 years.
    Aimee Picchi, CBS News, 29 Oct. 2024
Noun
  • Mazzoli piles unstable harmonies on top of that fractured foundation; trombone glissandos add a demonic sneer.
    Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2024
  • The outdoor effigy has been eliciting snickers, sneers — and the ire of politicians, who have called it a stunt.
    Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press, 10 Oct. 2024
Noun
  • And aside from Kendall’s growl, his voice is average.
    Charlie Mason, TVLine, 21 Oct. 2024
  • Singing birds, elephants calling and the growl of apex predators become a soundtrack for the researchers toiling away at their project.
    Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Oct. 2024
Noun
  • Today’s announcement marks the emergence of a new GE, a high-tech industrial GE — simper, stronger, a more focused company at the core.
    Jon Chesto, BostonGlobe.com, 26 June 2018
  • Al Capone lived as a schoolyard bully, died in a simper with a brain et by syphilis, and lives on through eternity as a cigarillo mascot and gimme film role for dark-haired white actors who want a chance to really chew some scenery.
    Paul Dailing, Chicago Reader, 21 Dec. 2017

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Cite this Entry

“Rictus.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/rictus. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

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