Word.ws English Dictionary

ratchet effects

ratchet effects is the plural of ratchet effect.

Meaning of ratchet effect

Noun

ratchet effect (plural ratchet effects)

  1. An instance of the restrained ability of human processes to be reversed once a specific thing has happened.
  2. (US, definite) A political process in the two-party system that, when Republican politicians are in power, they implement conservative policies, but when Democratic politicians hold power, they implement little to no progressive policies, leading to a status quo that only becomes more conservative despite the election of Democratic leaders.

Questions about ratchet effects

What is ratchet effects the plural of?
Ratchet effects is the plural of ratchet effect.

Words near ratchet effects in the dictionary

  1. ratchet coupling
  2. ratchet couplings
  3. ratchet drill
  4. ratchet drills
  5. ratchet effect
  6. ratchet effects
  7. ratchet jack
  8. ratchet jacks
  9. ratchet jaw
  10. ratchet jaws
  11. ratchet lever

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ratchet effects (page history and authors); ratchet effect (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “ratchet effects.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ratchet_effects. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.