racquet

• racket

From Middle English raket. Possibly cognate with Middle French rachette, requette (“palm of the hand”). Possibly from Arabic رَاحَة اَلْيَد (rāḥat al-yad, “palm of the hand”),[1] although this is doubtful.[2] Instead, the term is more likely to be derived from Dutch raketsen, from Middle French rachasser (“to strike (the ball) back”).[3]

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹækɪt/
• Rhymes: -ækɪt

racquet (plural racquets)

1. An implement with a handle connected to a round frame strung with wire, sinew, or plastic cords, and used to hit a ball, such as in tennis, or a shuttlecock in badminton.

• bat
• paddle

• badminton
• racquets
• squash
• tennis

racquet (third-person singular simple present racquets, present participle racqueting, simple past and past participle racqueted)

1. To hit with a racquet.
   • 1820, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady:

     You two might indeed have racqueted the ball betwixt you, as you say.

   • 1975, Norman Keifetz, The Sensation, page 21:

     Potter drove up along the wire fence of the yard, and there on the tennis court, a kid racqueted a ball against a brick wall behind the courts.

   • 1998, Mark Garvey, Searching for Mary: An Exploration of Marian Apparitions Across the U.S., →ISBN:

     One of the tennis center's satellite courts was lit to near daylight brightness by white floodlights; as I approached I could hear the steady, dry pock . . . pock of a tennis ball being racqueted back and forth.

2. To play a game that involves using a racquet.
   • 1948, Princeton Alumni Weekly - Volume 49, page 91:

     When he isn't racqueting, Brad claims he puts in the time with Alfred Dunhill of London.

   • 1962, Leonard Rusell, Encore - Volumes 7-9, page 132:

     ...played no games as a boy, but since he did me that good turn I have racqueted about happily.

   • 1992, Frances Charteris, First person multiple, third person femuline, page 89:

     I arrived to find a tennis foursome - architect & his wife, you & my mother, racquetting through a country english afternoon just as it's been bonged since Shakespeare penned his pages.

3. To dart about in a manner reminiscent of a ball hit by a racquet.
   • 1938, William Byron Mowery, Guns in the Valley, page 96:

     Flashlights in hand, they made their way down the slope and racqueted out upon the lake.

   • 2015, A.D. Padgett & ‎Mrs. Arthur H.D. Acland, Fantastically Queer Beasts and Magics, →ISBN, page 33:

     Fancy his disgust when (having given up all hopes of watching the full moon, he had just fallen asleep) he was awakened by the noise of that rat once more racqueting about all over the room.

4. To exchange back and forth, similar to the way a tennis ball volleys back and forth.
   • 2011, Robert Graves, Wife to Mr Milton, →ISBN:

     Many of his choicest years of life were employ'd in wrangling, and receiving and racquetting back reproach, accusation and sarcasm.

   • 2012, Andrew Smith, Totally Wired: The Wild Rise and Crazy Fall of the First Dotcom Dream, →ISBN:

     More astounding still is the volume of trading, as a manic afternoon sees Netscape shares change hands 13.88 million times; an average of almost two and a half times each, with some racqueted back and forth like tennis balls . . . a curious pattern which will become familiar to dotcom stock-watchers.