racket

a light bat having a netting of catgut or nylon stretched in a more or less oval frame and used for striking the ball in tennis, the shuttlecock in badminton, etc.

the short-handled paddle used to strike the ball in table tennis.

rackets, ( used with a singular verb ) racquet ( def 1 ).

a snowshoe made in the form of a tennis racket.

Also, racquet (for defs 1, 2, 4).

Origin:
1490–1500; < Middle French raquette, rachette, perhaps < Arabic rāḥet, variant of rāḥah palm of the hand

Related forms

rack·et·like, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To racket

Collins

World English Dictionary

racket¹ (ˈrækɪt)

—n
1.	a noisy disturbance or loud commotion; clamour; din
2.	gay or excited revelry, dissipation, etc
3.	an illegal enterprise carried on for profit, such as extortion, fraud, prostitution, drug peddling, etc
4.	slang a business or occupation: what's your racket?
5.	music
	a. a medieval woodwind instrument of deep bass pitch
	b. a reed stop on an organ of deep bass pitch

—vb (often foll by about)
6.	rare to go about gaily or noisily, in search of pleasure, excitement, etc

[C16: probably of imitative origin; compare rattle¹]

racket or racquet² (ˈrækɪt)

—n
1.	a bat consisting of an open network of nylon or other strings stretched in an oval frame with a handle, used to strike the ball in tennis, badminton, etc
2.	a snowshoe shaped like a tennis racket

—vb
3.	(tr) to strike (a ball, shuttlecock, etc) with a racket

[C16: from French raquette, from Arabic rāhat palm of the hand]

racquet or racquet²

—n

—vb

[C16: from French raquette, from Arabic rāhat palm of the hand]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

racket

"loud noise," 1565, said to be imitative. Meaning "dishonest activity" (1785) is perhaps from racquet, via notion of "game," reinforced by rack-rent "extortionate rent" (1591), from rack (1). Racketeer (v. and n.) first recorded 1928.

racket

"bat used in tennis, etc.," see racquet.

Slang Dictionary

racket definition

n.
noise. : Cut out that racket! Shut up!
n.
a deception; a scam. : This is not a service station; it's a real racket!
n.
any job. : I've been in this racket for twenty years and never made any money.

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Example sentences

The birds woke us at five with a pleasant racket in the trees, the sun came up,

and our experiment began.

The infuriating racket of generators pervades our neighborhood.

Accuracy and power are lost in this bending of the racket.

But, to purists, this natural noise may be even more unfair than the advancing

of racket technologies.

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tummler wood shot backswing badminton battledore break

Slang

juice racket

Matching Quote

"I shall not bring an automobile with me. These inventions infest France almost as much as Bloomer cycling costumes, but they make a horrid racket, and are particularly objectionable. So are the Bloomers. Nothing more abominable has ever been invented. Perhaps the automobile tricycles may succeed better, but I abjure all these works of the devil."

-Henry Brooks Adams