ratchet

1. 1.

   move by degrees in one direction only

   “a ratcheting lopping tool”

   Synonymsrachet upratchet down

   Broaderadvance

Other forms of ratchet

plural

ratchets·

past tense

ratchetted·

present participle

ratchetting·

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 ratchet

What does ratchet mean?

ratchet means "mechanical device consisting of a toothed wheel or rack engaged with a pawl that permits it to move in only one direction". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in ratchet?

ratchet has 2 syllables: rat-chet. The stress falls on "rat". In IPA it is /ˈɹætʃət/.

What is another word for ratchet?

Close synonyms include rachet, ratch, rachet up, ratchet down. 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 ratchet a common word?

ratchet is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.