Ratchet strap breaking strength. This allows a narrower determination of its origins. Excerpt from "Snuff" by Terry ADDED: It is possible that a third sense of racket contributed. —Janet Ratchet also means a situation or process that is perceived to be deteriorating or changing steadily in a series of irreversible steps. Sep 13, 2013 · Scheming does not carry the meaning of causing harm to others. Here's a relatively early one from 1967 where the meaning is crazy. From them I learned the following things about ratchet. In some contexts either form may be used without perceptible difference of meaning; the following are examples in which only one of them can now be used: ‘The ratchet-wheel can move only forwards’; ‘the right side of Dec 11, 2020 · Since the OP wants the sentence to conjure in readers a sense of "quantifiable relationship", if you will, I suggest the phrasal verb ratchet down, which readily evokes this sense (ratchet, by the way, consists of a toothed wheel and a bar which governs motion; the phrasal verb furnishes the notion of metaphorical motion). What does 'ratchet' mean, and how is it pronounced? Ratchet [is] used to describe someone means nasty, ghetto or trifling. Scanning Google Books I find a handful of references starting from the mid-60s where batshit is clearly just a variation on bullshit (nonsense, rubbish) - which meaning still turns up even in 2001, but it's relatively uncommon now. Some British dialects pronounce t as a glottal stop except initially and after s, but it is frequently ellided: interes (t)ing (French interessant); hustle (/ˈhʌsəl/ somehow from Dutch husselen, hutsen), buzzard ("bastard"). Old English verb hwōsan 'cough' shows that t From them I learned the following things about ratchet. :) The word crazy is a later addition. Instigate doesn't have the required meaning at all, the OP is asking for a word that describes someone who purposefully causes pain in others. Aug 22, 2011 · A good question: I'm in a similar quandry with a supplier, but after 'sorry to bother you' email or two, I started to ratchet-up the bluntness. This sense survives in modern rackets The OED says this The present distinction in usage between forward and forwards is that the latter expresses a definite direction viewed in contrast with other directions. It could be describing someone who is a perfectionis Nov 28, 2021 · I will take a guess that the noun is dialectal whoos (t), hoos (t). Old English verb hwōsan 'cough' shows that t . Also, please include the sources for your definitions. A decade later most references have this meaning, but the Terry Pratchett used in his disc world novels the word "avec" as a common food ingredient for french (in his books named "quirmian" or "Quirm" for the country) food. Racket is found in some 18th-and 19th-century texts as a variant of ratchet, a toothed wheel or bar, or a tooth or click for stopping the action of such a wheel or bar, and the general notion of device might have fed into the meaning. You can scheme for personal gain without necessarily hurting anyone or, at least, without that being your objective. I am looking for a word or multiple words to describe someone who is very (perhaps even 'overly') concerned about the fine details of something.