ratchet.
A pawl, click, or detent for holding or propelling a ratchet wheel, or ratch, etc.
Meaning & usage
A pawl, click, or detent for holding or propelling a ratchet wheel, or ratch, etc.
A mechanism composed of a ratchet wheel, or ratch and pawl.
A ratchet wrench.
A procedure or regulation that goes in one direction, usually up.
A mechanism for generating a new unique key for each message by moving forward in a sequence.
A noisemaker or musical instrument where sound is generated by a board striking against a rotating gear.
Ellipsis of full ratchet.
Where this word comes from
From French rochet (“bobbin, spindle, ratchet”), from Italian rocchetto (“spool, ratchet”).
To increment or decrement; especially, to offer controlled motion that can increment while resisting decrement, or vice versa.
This holddown ratchets, which allows the person loading the trailer to cinch down the straps.
To cause (something) to become incremented or decremented.
Get this holddown into position, but don't start ratcheting it yet. When I say go, you start ratcheting it, OK?
It's time to ratchet up the intensity level here.
Where this word comes from
From French rochet (“bobbin, spindle, ratchet”), from Italian rocchetto (“spool, ratchet”).
Ghetto; unseemly, indecorous.
Where this word comes from
Possibly a variant (representing a Southern or specifically Louisianan pronunciation) of wretched. Compare rasslin' for wrestling.
A person, usually a female, who acts or behaves in a ghetto, unseemly, or indecorous way or manner.
Where this word comes from
Possibly a variant (representing a Southern or specifically Louisianan pronunciation) of wretched. Compare rasslin' for wrestling.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.