racket
A loud noise.
Noun
- A loud noise.
- 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?
- An illegal scheme for profit; a fraud or swindle; or both coinstantiated.
- prostitution and gambling controlled by rackets
- They had quite a racket devised to relieve customers of their money.
- The following letter by William E. Lewis, Utica, published in both the Observer-Dispatch and the Daily Press, is reproduced here because of its bearing on the milk situation locally and elsewhere. Mr. Lewis' letter: […]...
Synonyms: deception deceit dupery fiddle fetch hocus-pocus jugglery legerdemain list mislead prestidigitation Punic faith rinky-dink ruse sleight of hand subterfuge swack trickery
- Any industry or enterprise.
- They dropped out of the acting racket in 1953 and soon took up writing. - 1979 February 10, John Mitzel, “Crimes of Passion”, in Gay Community News, volume 6, number 28, page 13:
- A carouse; any reckless dissipation.
- Something taking place considered as exciting, trying, unusual, etc. or as an ordeal.
Origin
Attested since the 1500s, of unclear origin; possibly a metathesis of the dialectal term rattick (“to shake, rattle”).
Forms
Derived
in the racket numbers racket protection racket racketbuster racketbusting racketeer racketeering racketlike racketry rackety tricky racket
Noun hobbies, lifestyle
- 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 shuttlecock in badminton.
- He bought a new tennis racket two days ago.
- 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. - 1922,...
- 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.
Origin
From Middle English raket, of uncertain origin. Possibly cognate with Middle French rachette, requette (“palm of the hand”). From Arabic رَاحَةْ اَلْيَد (rāḥat al-yad, “palm of the hand”). Alternatively, the term might be derived from Dutch raketsen instead, from Middle French rachasser (“to strike (the ball) back”).
Forms
Derived
badminton racket ladies' rackets racket abuse racketball racketlike racket sport racket-tail squash racket tennis racket
Verb Entry 3
- To make a clattering noise.
- To be dissipated; to carouse.
Forms
Verb Entry 4
- To strike with, or as if with, a racket.
- Poor man [is] racketed from one temptation to another. - 1658, John Hewytt, Nine Select Sermons: