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PlainSpell

trismus

noun

trismus is a noun meaning “The inability to open the mouth normally, typically as a result of disease” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-R-I-S-M-U-S, and it appears about once in every 52 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does trismus mean?

noun

  1. 1

    The inability to open the mouth normally, typically as a result of disease.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is trismus?

Trismus appears about once in every 52 million words in written English, the 225,584th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Where does trismus come from?

Borrowed from New Latin trismus, from Ancient Greek τρισμός (trismós, “a grinding, rasping, scream”), from Ancient Greek τρίζω (trízō).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).