racket

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹækɪt/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ækɪt

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”).^[1]

Alternatively, the term might be derived from Dutch raketsen instead, from Middle French rachasser (“to strike (the ball) back”).^[2]

racket (plural rackets)

2. (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 shuttlecock in badminton.

   Synonyms: bat, paddle, racquet

   • 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.

3. (Canada) A snowshoe formed of cords stretched across a long and narrow frame of light wood.
4. A broad wooden shoe or patten for a man or horse, to allow walking on marshy or soft ground.
5. Effacing the truth. A generally small group of people in the know putting on a false persona or narrative to deceive many. Originaged in 1935 from Gen. Smedley Butler's book War Is a Racket.
   • 2024, Digital Desk, RG Kar Hospital A Centre of Porn-Sex-Drug Racket? Kolkata Doctor's Rape-Murder Case Turns Murkier:

     “In the doctor's team, many such topics have come up in their WhatsApp group, some screenshots of this have also reached us like drugs, racket, sex racket. The names of a TMC MP and his nephew are coming up again and again, I don't know what happened but something is wrong,”

• (sporting implement): racquet
• (scheme to deceive): racketeering

racket (third-person singular simple present rackets, present participle racketing, simple past and past participle racketed)

1. To strike with, or as if with, a racket.
   • 1658, John Hewytt, Nine Select Sermons:

     Poor man racketed from one temptation to another.

• racket (sports equipment) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• list of racket sports on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Attested since the 1500s, of unclear origin; possibly a metathesis of the dialectal term rattick (“to shake, rattle”).^[3]

racket (plural rackets)

1. A loud noise.

   Synonyms: din, noise, ruckus, row

   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.

2. 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.

3. (dated, slang) A carouse; any reckless dissipation.
4. (dated, slang) Something taking place considered as exciting, trying, unusual, etc. or as an ordeal.

racket (third-person singular simple present rackets, present participle racketing, simple past and past participle racketed)

1. (intransitive) To make a clattering noise.
2. (intransitive, dated) To be dissipated; to carouse.

• Eckart, retack, tacker

Dutch Wikipedia has an article on:

racket

Wikipedia ^nl

Borrowed from English racket.

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: rac‧ket

racket n (plural rackets, diminutive racketje n)

1. ]racket (sports implement)

   Synonym: raket

• tennisracket

From English racket.

• IPA^(key): /ʁa.kɛt/

• Audio:

  (file)

racket m (plural rackets)

1. racketeering
2. racket, extortion

• “racket”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Italian Wikipedia has an article on:

racket

Wikipedia ^it

Unadapted borrowing from English racket.

• IPA^(key): /ˈra.ket/^[1]
• Rhymes: -aket
• Hyphenation: ràc‧ket

racket m (invariable)

1. racketeering
2. racket, extortion

• antiracket

Norwegian Wikipedia has an article on:

racket

Wikipedia ^no

• rekkert

From Arabic رَاحَة (rāḥa, “palm of the hand”), via French raquette, and English racket.

racket m (definite singular racketen, indefinite plural racketer, definite plural racketene)

1. (sports) a racket or racquet
2. (table tennis) a bat, or paddle (US)

• “racket” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

• rekkert

From Arabic رَاحَة (rāḥa, “palm of the hand”), via French raquette, and English racket.

racket m (definite singular racketen, indefinite plural racketar, definite plural racketane)

1. (sports) a racket or racquet
2. (table tennis) a bat, or paddle (US)

• “racket” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From French racket.

racket m (plural rackeți)

1. racketeer

Swedish Wikipedia has an article on:

racket

Wikipedia ^sv

racket c

1. (sports) a racket

Controversial grammatical gender. Both "ett racket" and "ett rack" (perhaps from interpreting "-et" as a neuter definite suffix) are fairly common as well.

• badmintonracket
• bordtennisracket
• racketsport
• squashracket
• tennisracket

racket

1. definite singular of rack

• racket in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• racket in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• racket in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)