racquet

plural racquets

1. CommonwealthalternativeAlternative form of racket (“implement with a handle connected to a round frame”).

   After yet another mid-court volley error, Serena got so upset that she smashed her racquet deep into the clay court. The racquet was unusable after that, and when she went to her bag to grab another, she found that all her other racquets had broken strings.

   2003, Dave Rineberg, Venus & Serena: My Seven Years as Hitting Coach for the Williams Sisters, Frederick Fell Publishers, →ISBN, page 165

   Synonyms: bat, paddle

present singular third person racquets · participle present racqueting · participle past racqueted · past racqueted

1. To hit with a racquet.

   You two might indeed have racqueted the ball betwixt you, as you say.

   1820, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady

   2 more examples

   Potter drove up along the wire fence of the yard, and there on the tennis court, a kid racqueted a ball against a brick wall behind the courts.

   1975, Norman Keifetz, The Sensation, page 21

   One of the tennis center's satellite courts was lit to near daylight brightness by white floodlights; as I approached I could hear the steady, dry pock . . . pock of a tennis ball being racqueted back and forth.

   1998, Mark Garvey, Searching for Mary: An Exploration of Marian Apparitions Across the U.S., →ISBN

2. To play a game that involves using a racquet.

   When he isn't racqueting, Brad claims he puts in the time with Alfred Dunhill of London.

   1948, Princeton Alumni Weekly - Volume 49, page 91

   2 more examples

   ...played no games as a boy, but since he did me that good turn I have racqueted about happily.

   1962, Leonard Rusell, Encore - Volumes 7-9, page 132

   I arrived to find a tennis foursome - architect & his wife, you & my mother, racquetting through a country english afternoon just as it's been bonged since Shakespeare penned his pages.

   1992, Frances Charteris, First person multiple, third person femuline, page 89

3. To dart about in a manner reminiscent of a ball hit by a racquet.

   Flashlights in hand, they made their way down the slope and racqueted out upon the lake.

   1938, William Byron Mowery, Guns in the Valley, page 96

   1 more example

   Fancy his disgust when (having given up all hopes of watching the full moon, he had just fallen asleep) he was awakened by the noise of that rat once more racqueting about all over the room.

   2015, A.D. Padgett, Mrs. Arthur H.D. Acland, Fantastically Queer Beasts and Magics, →ISBN, page 33

4. To exchange back and forth, similar to the way a tennis ball volleys back and forth.

   Many of his choicest years of life were employ'd in wrangling, and receiving and racquetting back reproach, accusation and sarcasm.

   2011, Robert Graves, Wife to Mr Milton, →ISBN

   1 more example

   More astounding still is the volume of trading, as a manic afternoon sees Netscape shares change hands 13.88 million times; an average of almost two and a half times each, with some racqueted back and forth like tennis balls . . . a curious pattern which will become familiar to dotcom stock-watchers.

   2012, Andrew Smith, Totally Wired: The Wild Rise and Crazy Fall of the First Dotcom Dream, →ISBN