Word.ws English Dictionary

ratching

ratching is the present participle and gerund of ratch.

Meaning of ratch

Verb

ratch (third-person singular simple present ratches, present participle ratching, simple past and past participle ratched)

  1. (transitive) To stretch.
  2. (transitive) To streak.
  3. (intransitive) To sail by tacks.

See all 5 meanings of ratch

Noun

ratching (plural ratchings)

  1. The act of that which ratches or stretches.
    • The various ratchings of the torture wheel require what was gleaned before; but it is a descent of asking, not answering. At no stage on the level of torture do we discover what is the fundamental answer.2000, Michael Gelven, The Asking Mystery: A Philosophical Inquiry, page 169

Forms of ratching

pluralratchings

Questions about ratching

What does ratching mean?
Ratching means the act of that which ratches or stretches.
What is ratching the present participle and gerund of?
Ratching is the present participle and gerund of ratch.
What part of speech is ratching?
Ratching is a noun.
What is the plural of ratching?
The plural of ratching is ratchings.

Words near ratching in the dictionary

  1. ratchetness
  2. ratchets
  3. ratchets up
  4. ratchety
  5. Ratchford
  6. ratching
  7. ratchings
  8. Ratcliff
  9. Ratcliffe
  10. Ratcliffe-on-Soar
  11. Ratcliffes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ratching (page history and authors); ratch (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: “ratching.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ratching. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.