ratchet up
ratchet up verb: to increase; especially, to increase by degrees in a way that only gets worse, never experiencing any reprieves.
Verb
ratchet up (third-person singular simple present ratchets up, present participle ratcheting up, simple past and past participle ratcheted up)
- To increase; especially, to increase by degrees in a way that only gets worse, never experiencing any reprieves.
- Near-synonyms: dial up, hike up
- After all, nations are pouring massive resources into military applications of AI, and many citizens don’t know or don’t care. Yet that quiescent attitude may change over time, as the domestic use of AI surveillance ratchets up, and that technology is increasingly identified with shadowy...2020 October 15, Frank Pasquale, “‘Machines set loose to slaughter’: the dangerous rise of military AI”, in The Guardian
Synonyms of ratchet up
Antonyms
Forms of ratchet up
| third-person singular present | ratchets up |
|---|---|
| present participle | ratcheting up |
| past participle | ratcheted up |
| past | ratcheted up |
Origin of ratchet up
From the action of a ratchet; used both literally and figuratively.
Questions about ratchet up
- What does ratchet up mean?
- Ratchet up means to increase; especially, to increase by degrees in a way that only gets worse, never experiencing any reprieves.
- What part of speech is ratchet up?
- Ratchet up is a verb.
- What is the past tense of ratchet up?
- The past tense of ratchet up is ratcheted up.
Words near ratchet up in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ratchet up (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.
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Cite this entry: “ratchet up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ratchet_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.