Ricket
adj, noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A racket or disturbance. dialectal, obsolete
- 2 A policeman's rattle. dialectal, obsolete
- 3 An error; a mistake. dialectal
"Superintendent Butler said that after he had been questioned at Cannon Row police station Wilson said, "You obviously know a lot. I've made a ricket somewhere. I'll have to take my chance. I don't see how you can make it stick without the poppy—and you won't find that.""
- 1 To move rapidly and uncertainly, often in a noisy, clamorous, or reckless manner. transitive
"As it stands now, Earth's own structure must go ricketing down in the near future, the Outer Worlds will slowly degenerate and decay in a somewhat further future, but the new colonies will be a new and healthy strain, combining the best of both cultures."
- 1 Unsteady, rickety. dialectal, obsolete
Example
More examples"As it stands now, Earth's own structure must go ricketing down in the near future, the Outer Worlds will slowly degenerate and decay in a somewhat further future, but the new colonies will be a new and healthy strain, combining the best of both cultures."
Etymology
From a dialectal past participle of rick (“to rattle, jiggle, make a noise”), equivalent to rick + -et.
Uncertain. Perhaps an alteration of racket, influenced by Etymology 1 above, or perhaps related to Norwegian Nynorsk rikta (“to make a noise, creak”).
More for "ricket"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.