racket
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɹækɪt/
rhymes: -ækɪt
Forms: form: rackets
form: racquet
form: racketeering
Etymology: Attested since the 1500s, of unclear origin; possibly a metathesis of the dialectal term rattick (“to shake, rattle”).
Senses: examples: text: Power tools work quickly, but they sure make a racket.
text: With all the racket they're making, I can't hear myself think!
text: What's all this racket?
text: Vast flights of starlings, fleeing the racket, beat across the sky at high speed, like Squall-clouds,— Evening at Noon-tide.
ref: 1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 52, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 501:
synonyms: din
noise
ruckus
row
glosses: A loud noise.
examples: text: prostitution and gambling controlled by rackets
text: They had quite a racket devised to relieve customers of their money.
text: The following letter by William E. Lewis, Utica, published in both the Observer-Dispatch and the Daily Press, is reproduced here because of its bearing on the milk situation locally and elsewhere. Mr. Lewis' letter: […] Finally, in addition to ruinous price control, the farmer in the Mohawk Valley is up against a "milk racket" in Utica, a "racket" as heinous and disreputable as any milk racket in New York City or Chicago. There is no free market in Utica. The owner of a herd of 40 cows can't sell his milk in Utica, no matter how rich, pure and wholesome his milk may be, unless he signs a contract with the Dairymen's League (which never has distributed milk in Utica) through the farmers' contract to the dealers (who is in the milk racket) and who sells the poor pinched farmers' milk for 17¢ a quart which has cost him 3½¢ to 4½¢ per quart. It is a "racket" pure and simple. The Dairymen's League rakeoff is 5¢ per 100 pounds of milk and 15¢ for financing the "business." How can that be, inquires the farmer with 40 cows and 500 quarts of milk daily to sell. The answer is, that about 30 months ago the largest retail dealers of Utica experienced a shortage of milk, and applied to the Dairymen's League for a relief supply of milk, which was furnished, but on condition, however, that the dealers force their producing farmers to sign contracts with the Dairymen's League or be turned out of the market. With no market to go to, the farmers stood for the "racket," all except a few, who have given their choice cows to the butcher rather than submit. Among the victims of this "turn off" was the writer, owner of 40 cows and a farm in the Mohawk Valley. A "racket" is a detestable thing, if it results in 17¢ a quart to the consumer and 4½¢ price to the farmer.
ref: 1930, William E. Lewis, quotee, “Claims Racket Controls Milk / Producers Are Going Broke—No Chance to Operate Profitably on Present Prices”, in Unity Dairymen's News, volume 2, number 11: September, Utica, New York, page 4:
text: War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives... Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits... skyrocket—and are safely pocketed.
ref: 1935, Smedley Butler, War is a Racket, page 1 & 7:
text: In six decades he had spotted all the rackets, smelled all the rats, and he was tired of being the absolute and sick master and boss of the inner self.
ref: 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift, page 408:
text: Island girl,
Black boy want you in his island world.
He want to take you from the racket boss.
 He want to save you, but the cause is lost.
ref: 1975, “Island Girl”, in Bernie Taupin (lyrics), Rock of the Westies, performed by Elton John:
synonyms: word: Abraham work
word: deception
word: deceit
word: dupery
word: fiddle
word: hocus-pocus
word: jugglery
word: list
word: mislead
word: Punic faith
word: rinky-dink
word: ruse
word: subterfuge
word: swack
word: trickery
glosses: An illegal scheme for profit; a fraud or swindle; or both coinstantiated.
examples: text: They dropped out of the acting racket in 1953 and soon took up writing.
ref: 1979 February 10, John Mitzel, “Crimes of Passion”, in Gay Community News, volume 6, number 28, page 13:
glosses: Any industry or enterprise.
glosses: A carouse; any reckless dissipation.
glosses: Something taking place considered as exciting, trying, unusual, etc. or as an ordeal.
Derived terms: in the racket
numbers racket
protection racket
racketeer
racketeering
tricky racket