racket
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈɹækɪt/
Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ækɪt
Etymology 1
From Middle English raket. Possibly cognate with Middle French rachette, requette (“palm of the hand”). From Arabic رَاحَةْ اَلْيَد (rāḥat al-yad, “palm of the hand”).[1] The term might be derived from Dutch raketsen instead, from Middle French rachasser (“to strike (the ball) back”).[2]
Noun
racket (plural rackets)
- (countable, sports) An implement with a handle connected to a round frame strung with wire, sinew, or plastic cords, and used to hit a ball, such as in tennis or a birdie in badminton.
- 1922, Michael Arlen, “3/19/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:
- Ivor had acquired more than a mile of fishing rights with the house ; he was not at all a good fisherman, but one must do something ; one generally, however, banged a ball with a squash-racket against a wall.
- (Canada) A snowshoe formed of cords stretched across a long and narrow frame of light wood.
- A broad wooden shoe or patten for a man or horse, to allow walking on marshy or soft ground.
Alternative forms
- (sporting implement): racquet
Translations
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Verb
racket (third-person singular simple present rackets, present participle racketing, simple past and past participle racketed)
- To strike with, or as if with, a racket.
- 1658, John Hewytt, Nine Select Sermons:
- Poor man [is] racketed from one temptation to another.
Further reading
racket (sports equipment) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
list of racket sports on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Etymology 2
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Attested since the 1500s, of unclear origin; possibly a metathesis of the dialectal term rattick (“rattle”).[3]
Noun
racket (plural rackets)
- A loud noise.
- Synonyms: din, noise, ruckus
- Power tools work quickly, but they sure make a racket.
- With all the racket they're making, I can't hear myself think!
- What's all this racket?
- 1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 52, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 501:
- Vast flights of starlings, fleeing the racket, beat across the sky at high speed, like Squall-clouds,— Evening at Noon-tide.
- An illegal scheme for profit; a fraud or swindle; or both coinstantiated.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:deception
- prostitution and gambling controlled by rackets
- They had quite a racket devised to relieve customers of their money.
- 1935, Smedley Butler, War is a Racket, page 1 & 7:
- War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives... Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits... skyrocket—and are safely pocketed.
- 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift, page 408:
- In six decades he had spotted all the rackets, smelled all the rats, and he was tired of being the absolute and sick master and boss of the inner self.
- (dated, slang) A carouse; any reckless dissipation.
- (dated, slang) Something taking place considered as exciting, trying, unusual, etc. or as an ordeal.
Translations
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Verb
racket (third-person singular simple present rackets, present participle racketing, simple past and past participle racketed)
- (intransitive) To make a clattering noise.
- (intransitive, dated) To be dissipated; to carouse.
References
- American Heritage Dictionary, Racket; https://web.archive.org/web/20130714083021/http://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=racket
- Gillmeister, Heiner (1998) Tennis: A Cultural History, Washington Square, N.Y.: New York University Press, →ISBN, pages 5, 123
- “racket”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
Dutch
Pronunciation
Audio (file) - Hyphenation: rac‧ket
Derived terms
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ʁa.kɛt/
Audio (file)
Further reading
- “racket”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Italian
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈra.ket/[1]
- Rhymes: -aket
- Hyphenation: ràc‧ket
Derived terms
References
- racket in Luciano Canepari, Dizionario di Pronuncia Italiana (DiPI)
Norwegian Bokmål
Alternative forms
References
- “racket” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
Norwegian Nynorsk
Alternative forms
References
- “racket” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.
Romanian
Declension
Swedish
Usage notes
Controversial grammatical gender. Both "ett racket" and "ett rack" (perhaps from interpreting "-et" as a neuter definite suffix) are fairly common as well.
Declension
Declension of racket | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | |||
Indefinite | Definite | Indefinite | Definite | |
Nominative | racket | racketen | racketar | racketarna |
Genitive | rackets | racketens | racketars | racketarnas |
Derived terms
- badmintonracket
- bordtennisracket
- racketsport
- squashracket
- tennisracket