ratchet

Etymology

It is an alteration of earlier rochet,^[2][3][4] borrowed from French rochet,^{[5][3][4][6][7]} which in French meant a tooth on the edge of a wheel, earlier a bobbin or spool, and first, in Old French from 1285, the head of a lance used for jousting;^[5] the Middle French form was rocquet, recorded in Paré in 1534.^[5][2][8] The French word is a diminutive formed with -et from a lost word cognate with the Romance names of the distaff,^[5] and it corresponds to, or partly comes from, Italian rocchetto (“spool, ratchet”) (1310),^[5][6][7] a diminutive of rocca (“distaff”).^[3][4] Most dictionaries take the root to be Germanic:^{[2][9][10][8]} Ayto and Klein trace it to Frankish *rokko (“spool”) (Klein *rokka (“spindle”)),^[11][12] related to Old High German rocko (“distaff”) and Old Norse rokkr,^[2][12][4] from Proto-Germanic *rukka- and perhaps Proto-Indo-European *ruk- (“fabric, spun yarn”).^[4] The spelling ratchet, recorded from 1721, was influenced by the synonymous ratch,^[3][4][6][2] which may come from German Rätsche (“ratchet”).^{[3][4][11][7]} It is related to rocket and to the archaic rock meaning a distaff.^[11][4][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, in Scottish before 1650 in Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland, is the barrel of a gun, a rare sense soon lost.^[5] The mechanical sense, a set of angled teeth on a bar or wheel that a pawl catches on, is recorded from 1659 in John Leak's translation of de Caus's New Inventions of Water-Works,^[5][3] still in the form rochet.^[3][4] Merriam-Webster dates the mechanism sense to 1654.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the teeth, now central to the word, were not part of the original idea: the source meant a spool or spindle, and the teeth were presumably added to a turning spool in a machine.^[11] The OED suggests that in French the jousting-lance head, tipped by the 14th century with a pronged crown and later with a tube with a serrated end, gave its name to the similarly shaped toothed wheel.^[5] English also used the word for a kind of bobbin (1728–63) and for each tooth of the device (1721–1860).^[5] The verb, to move with or as with a ratchet, followed in 1881,^[5][2] although Etymonline dates it to 1852.^[4] From the mid-20th century the device became a figure for change that goes only one way: the noun for an incremental or irreversible change is recorded from 1944,^[5] and the verb ratchet up or down, to raise or lower step by step, from 1965 (Etymonline has it by 1977).^[5][4] Other specialised senses are a percussion instrument with a toothed wheel (1933) and a share-incentive scheme in venture capital (1987).^[5] In US Black English the word took on slang senses at the end of the 20th century: the adjective "wild, out of control", later "trashy, lacking class", is recorded from 1992,^[14] with "exciting, excellent" from 2007;^[14] a noun for a pistol is recorded from 2000,^[14] and a derogatory noun for a woman seen as promiscuous or unrefined from 2004.^[14] Green's Dictionary of Slang takes the adjective from the verb's sense "increase the intensity",^[14] the American Heritage Dictionary from a dance with ratcheting arm movements introduced in the recording “Do the Ratchet” (1999) by the rapper Anthony Mark Mandigo, known as Mr Mandigo,^[9] and Dictionary.com from a dance and a style of hip-hop from Shreveport, Louisiana.^[8]

Timeline

• before 1650 – in Scots, the barrel of a gun (now obsolete).^[5]
• 1659 – a set of angled teeth on a bar or wheel engaged by a pawl, as rochet.^[5][3] Merriam-Webster dates the mechanism to 1654.^[2]
• 1721 – the spelling ratchet; the teeth of the device (obsolete by 1860).^[3][5]
• 1728 – a kind of bobbin (obsolete by 1763).^[5]
• 1846 – the pawl that catches on the toothed wheel.^[5]
• 1881 – verb, to move with or as with a ratchet.^[5][2] Etymonline dates the verb to 1852.^[4]
• 1933 – a percussion instrument with a toothed wheel.^[5]
• 1944 – figurative, an incremental or irreversible change.^[5]
• 1965 – ratchet up, ratchet down, to increase or decrease by steps.^[5]
• 1992 – US slang adjective, wild or out of control; later trashy, unrefined.^[14]
• 2000 – US slang, a pistol.^[14]
• 2004 – US slang, a woman regarded as promiscuous or unrefined.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mechanism in which a pawl engages the sloping teeth of a wheel or bar, so that it can move in one direction only.^[9][10][2]
2. The toothed wheel or bar, or the pawl, of such a mechanism.^[9][10][5]
3. A process seen as moving steadily in one direction in steps that cannot be reversed: the upward ratchet of bus fares.^[13][8][5]
4. (music) A percussion instrument in which a toothed wheel strikes a stiff tongue to make a rattling sound.^[5]
5. (finance) An incentive scheme that gives managers a larger share of the equity if a business performs well.^[5]
6. A dance with ratcheting movements of the bent arms.^[9]
7. (US slang) A pistol or revolver.^[14]
8. (US slang, derogatory) A woman regarded as promiscuous, loud or unrefined.^[14]

Verb

1. To move or work by means of a ratchet, or to move jerkily or by degrees.^[2][5][10]
2. ratchet up, ratchet down: to increase or decrease step by step, often irreversibly: The new rules ratcheted up the pressure on landlords.^{[10][9][2][5]}
3. To make a clicking or grinding sound like that of a ratchet.^[5]

Adjective

1. (US slang) Wild or out of control; flashy, trashy or lacking in class.^[9][8][14]
2. (US slang) Exciting or excellent.^[8][14]

Word family

• ratchet jack
• ratchet effect

Related words

• rocket
• rock
• ratch
• pawl

Usage notes

A separate, older ratchet was a hunting dog, recorded from 1563 and formed from ratch, a northern variant of rache, with the suffix -et; it now survives only in Gabriel ratchet and gabble ratchet.^[5] In Leicestershire dialect ratchet was a rat-hole, and in Lincolnshire a verb meaning to tear clothes.^[15] The slang adjective is usually derogatory.^[9][14]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c d e f g h The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
15. ^ 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)