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Etymology and origin of the English word racket

English has two words spelled racket: the bat, borrowed from French, and the noise, of uncertain origin.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

  • /ˈɹækɪt/[4]

racket1 bat for tennis etc.

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1385 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde
Borrowed from
Middle French raquette via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Arabic رَاحَةْ اَلْيَد

Etymology

The bat is inherited from Middle English raket,[5][6] probably borrowed from Middle French raquette,[2][7][8][9] which the OED records for a paddle-shaped tool apparently used to scrape a ship's bottom (1388), an implement for striking a ball (mid-15th century) and a snowshoe (1557), and takes as apparently a variant of the word for the palm of the hand.[2] Etymonline, Barnhart and the MED give the forms Old French rachette, requette and rechete, palm of the hand, racket.[10][6][5] Most dictionaries trace the French word to Arabic رَاحَةْ اَلْيَد (rāḥat al-yad, “palm of the hand”),[11][9][12][1][6][7][13] Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and Ayto through Italian racchetta,[12][9][1] the American Heritage Dictionary through Medieval Latin rascheta (“palm”);[11] Barnhart thinks the French word was perhaps reinforced by Spanish raqueta.[6] Etymonline notes that the Arabic origin has been doubted,[10] and Dictionary.com marks it as only perhaps.[8] The OED takes the Italian (recorded before 1536), the Spanish and Dutch raket (1525) all to be from French in the sporting sense.[2] Another proposal, by H. Gillmeister, derives the English word through an unrecorded Flemish form from Middle French rachas (“a kind of ball game”) or Old French rachacier (“to hit a ball back”); the OED discusses it without adopting it.[2][13] Compare French jeu de paume (“tennis”), literally "play with the palm".[10][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A game in which players struck a ball, or cast dice, to and fro, perhaps with the palm of the hand: in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (about 1385; manuscript before 1425), "Kanstow playen raket, to and fro".[5][2][6]

Semantic evolution

The OED finds the early English records remarkable because they name the game rather than the implement and are earlier than the French sense "implement for striking a ball"; it is uncertain whether the game was first played with a racket or with the palm, bare or gloved.[2] The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins explains the name by the ball having first been hit with the hand.[3] The bat itself is recorded in Dunbar's poems (1500–20) according to Barnhart,[6] about 1500 according to Etymonline and Word Origins,[10][3] and about 1544 in the OED.[2] The old game survives in the plural rackets (from 1704), and French rackets is a borrowing from English.[2][3] In North America the word was used of a latticework snowshoe from 1609 and of a lacrosse stick from 1791.[2][12] In Scots it meant a hard blow (1710), and in ornithology a racket-shaped feather (1887).[2] A verb, to strike with or as if with a racket, appeared in 1599 and is now obsolete.[2][7][9] The spelling racquet is also used.[6][7]

Timeline

  • c. 1385 – raket, a game played to and fro, in Chaucer.[5][2][6]
  • c. 1544 – the bat used to strike a ball.[2] Barnhart finds it in Dunbar's poems (1500–20).[6]
  • 1535 – a military sling (obsolete).[2]
  • 1599 – verb, to strike with a racket.[2]
  • 1609 – a snowshoe, in North America.[2]
  • 1704 – rackets, the game.[2]
  • 1791 – a lacrosse stick.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A bat with a handle and an oval or round frame strung with a network of cords, used to hit the ball or shuttlecock in tennis, badminton, squash and similar games.[7][14][2]
  2. rackets (treated as singular): a ball game for two or four players in a four-walled court.[2][9]
  3. (North America) A snowshoe with a broad latticework frame.[2][12]
  4. A lacrosse stick.[2]

Verb

  1. (obsolete) To strike with or as if with a racket; to bandy.[7][9][2]

Word family

  • rackets

racket2 loud noise; illegal scheme

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Onomatopoeia
First attested
1565 Archbishop M. Parker, letter

Etymology

The noise is of uncertain origin, probably imitative of a clattering sound.[2][7][10][9][12][1] Klein compared Scottish Gaelic racaid (“noise, disturbance”),[15][10] but the OED takes the Gaelic word to be borrowed from English.[2][10] Dictionary.com takes the word as a metathesis of the dialect word rattick, related to rattle.[8] Partridge suggests that it may have been prompted in part by the rattle of dice in the old game called racket.[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

Uproar, disturbance, din: 1565, in a letter of Archbishop M. Parker.[2] Merriam-Webster and Barnhart give the same year,[7][6] Etymonline the 1560s.[10]

Semantic evolution

From the noise the word passed to a fuss or loud protest (1644, to raise a racket),[2] and in the 18th century to a noisy party (1745) and the bustle and dissipation of society (1771);[2][12] the verb, to lead a lively social life, is dated 1650 by the OED and 1609 by Merriam-Webster.[2][7] In late 19th-century America a racket was also a waltz-like dance.[2][17] The criminal sense, a fraudulent line of business, is first recorded in Vaux's dictionary of flash language: Green's Dictionary of Slang and Barnhart date it 1812, the OED 1819, and Etymonline gives 1785.[17][6][2][10] Its origin is unclear: the OED suggests it grew out of the social sense, with reference to the pleasure taken in a successful swindle, and rejects the story that it came from selling tickets for bogus social events;[2] Barnhart and Etymonline suggest the "game" sense of racket1, perhaps helped by rack-rent, extortionate rent, and Etymonline also the noise made to distract a pickpocket's victim.[6][10] In the 1920s, in the United States, it came to mean an enterprise of organized crime (1925), and the rackets organized crime in general;[2] racketeer followed in 1928.[6] A weaker sense, an occupation or line of business, is recorded from 1880.[2][10] In Scots and English dialect the word also meant a drinking bout.[18]

Timeline

  • 1565 – a loud noise, uproar.[2][7][6]
  • 1617 – verb, to make a noise; to move about noisily.[2]
  • 1644 – a loud protest, a fuss.[2]
  • 1650 – verb, to lead a lively social life.[2] Merriam-Webster dates this sense to 1609.[7]
  • 1745 – a noisy party.[2]
  • 1771 – the bustle of society; dissipation.[2]
  • 1812 – a dishonest scheme or form of fraud, in Vaux's flash vocabulary.[17][6] The OED dates it 1819.[2]
  • 1880 – an occupation or line of business.[2]
  • 1925 – a criminal enterprise, and the rackets organized crime.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A loud, confused noise; a din: The neighbours' dog kept up a racket all night.[7][14][2]
  2. A noisy commotion or fuss.[2][7]
  3. An illegal or dishonest scheme for making money, such as extortion or fraud.[14][2]
  4. (informal) An occupation or line of business: He has been in the insurance racket for twenty years.[14][2]
  5. Lively social activity; a round of excitement.[7][2]

Verb

  1. To make a loud noise; to move about noisily.[2][9]
  2. To lead a lively social life, often with about or around.[7][2]

Word family

  • racketeer
  • racketeering
  • rackety
  • racketry

References

  1. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  12. ^ a b c d e f Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  13. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  16. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  17. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Racket.” Etymologically, 31 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/racket. Accessed 1 Nov. 2026.

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