ratchet
/ˈɹæt͡ʃɪt/noun, verb, adjective
ratchet is spelled R-A-T-C-H-E-T. The wrong spelling people search most is rachet: about 910 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Ratchet is a noun meaning “A pawl, click, or detent for holding or propelling a ratchet wheel, or ratch, etc”. The plural of ratchet is ratchets.
How many letters and syllables are in ratchet?
| Letters | 7: R-A-T-C-H-E-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.4 times per million words; the 23,835th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, rachet, about 910 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell ratchet?
Ratchet is spelled R-A-T-C-H-E-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for ratchet in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is ratchet?
Ratchet appears 1.4 times per million words in written English, the 23,835th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce ratchet?
- /ˈɹæt͡ʃɪt/
Ratchet has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-ratchet.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with ratchet?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as ratchet.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: chatter.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of ratchet
- ratchets plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- ratcheting participle, present
- ratcheted participle, past
- more ratchet comparative
- most ratchet superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does ratchet mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A pawl, click, or detent for holding or propelling a ratchet wheel, or ratch, etc.
- 2
A mechanism composed of a ratchet wheel, or ratch and pawl.
- 3
A ratchet wrench.
- 4
A procedure or regulation that goes in one direction, usually up.
- 5
A mechanism for generating a new unique key for each message by moving forward in a sequence.
- 6
A noisemaker or musical instrument where sound is generated by a board striking against a rotating gear.
- 7
Ellipsis of full ratchet.
- 8
USderogatoryslangA person, usually a female, who acts or behaves in a ghetto, unseemly, or indecorous way or manner.
verb
- 1
To increment or decrement; especially, to offer controlled motion that can increment while resisting decrement, or vice versa.
This holddown ratchets, which allows the person loading the trailer to cinch down the straps.
- 2
To cause (something) to become incremented or decremented.
Get this holddown into position, but don't start ratcheting it yet. When I say go, you start ratcheting it, OK?
adjective
- 1
USderogatoryslangGhetto; unseemly, indecorous.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Ratchet in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | rochet |
| German | Sperrklinke , Gesperre |
| Spanish | carraca , matraca |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does ratchet come from?
From French rochet (“bobbin, spindle, ratchet”), from Italian rocchetto (“spool, ratchet”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).