racket

plural rackets · alternative Commonwealth racquet · alternative racketeering

1. countablehobbiesAn 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.

   1 more example

   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, Michael Arlen, “3/19/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days

   Synonyms: bat, paddle, racquet

2. CanadaA snowshoe formed of cords stretched across a long and narrow frame of light wood.
3. A broad wooden shoe or patten for a man or horse, to allow walking on marshy or soft ground.

present singular third person rackets · participle present racketing · participle past racketed · past racketed · alternative Commonwealth racquet · alternative racketeering

1. To strike with, or as if with, a racket.

   Poor man [is] racketed from one temptation to another.

   1658, John Hewytt, Nine Select Sermons

plural rackets · alternative Commonwealth racquet · alternative racketeering

1. A loud noise.

   What's all this racket?

   3 more examples

   Power tools work quickly, but they sure make a racket.

   With all the racket they're making, I can't hear myself think!

   Vast flights of starlings, fleeing the racket, beat across the sky at high speed, like Squall-clouds,— Evening at Noon-tide.

   1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 52, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 501

   Synonyms: din, noise, ruckus, row

2. An illegal scheme for profit; a fraud or swindle; or both coinstantiated.

   prostitution and gambling controlled by rackets

   4 more examples

   They had quite a racket devised to relieve customers of their money.

   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.

   1935, Smedley Butler, War is a Racket, page 1 & 7

   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.

   1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift, page 408

   Island girl, Black boy want you in his island world. He want to take you from the racket boss. He want to save you, but the cause is lost.

   1975, “Island Girl”, in Bernie Taupin (lyrics), Rock of the Westies, performed by Elton John

   Synonyms: deception, imposition, hype, deceit, dupery, fiddle, fetch, hocus-pocus

3. informalAny 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

4. datedslangA carouse; any reckless dissipation.
5. datedslangSomething taking place considered as exciting, trying, unusual, etc. or as an ordeal.

present singular third person rackets · participle present racketing · participle past racketed · past racketed · alternative Commonwealth racquet · alternative racketeering

1. intransitiveTo make a clattering noise.
2. datedintransitiveTo be dissipated; to carouse.

1. computer languagesA general-purpose, multiparadigm programming language descended from Scheme.