ratch

Other forms of ratch

plural

ratches·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about ratch

What does ratch mean?

ratch means "mechanical device consisting of a toothed wheel or rack engaged with a pawl that permits it to move in only one direction".

How many syllables are in ratch?

ratch has 1 syllable under the regular spelling rules, and is not divided further. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for ratch?

Close synonyms include ratchet, rachet. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is ratch a common word?

ratch is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.