Ratchet vs. Ghetto

Ratchetnoun

A pawl, click, or detent for holding or propelling a ratchet wheel, or ratch, etc.

Ghettonoun

An (often walled) area of a city in which Jews are concentrated by force and law. Used particularly of areas in medieval Italy and in Nazi-controlled Europe.

Ratchetnoun

A mechanism composed of a ratchet wheel, or ratch and pawl.

Ghettonoun

An (often impoverished) area of a city inhabited predominantly by members of a specific nationality, ethnicity, or race.

Ratchetnoun

A ratchet wrench.

Ghettonoun

An area in which people who are distinguished by sharing something other than ethnicity concentrate or are concentrated.

Ratchetnoun

(by extension) A procedure or regulation that goes in one direction, usually up.

Ghettonoun

An isolated, self-contained, segregated subsection, area or field of interest; often of minority or specialist interest.

Ratchetnoun

A noisemaker or musical instrument where sound is generated by a board striking against a rotating gear. See gragger, raganella.

Ghettoadjective

Of or relating to a ghetto or to ghettos in general.

Ratchetverb

(transitive) To cause to become incremented or decremented.

‘It's time to ratchet up the intensity level here.’;

Ghettoadjective

Unseemly and indecorous or of low quality; cheap; shabby, crude.

‘My apartment's so ghetto, the rats and cockroaches filed a complaint with the city!’; ‘I like to drive ghetto cars; if they break down you can just abandon them and pick up a new one!’;

Ratchetverb

(intransitive) To increment or decrement.

Ghettoadjective

Characteristic of the style, speech, or behavior of residents of a predominantly black or other ghetto in the United States.

Ratchetadjective

Ghetto; unseemly, indecorous.

Ghettoadjective

Having been raised in a ghetto in the United States.

Ratchetnoun

A pawl, click, or detent, for holding or propelling a ratchet wheel, or ratch, etc.

Ghettoverb

To confine (a specified group of people) to a ghetto.

Ratchetnoun

A mechanism composed of a ratchet wheel, or ratch, and pawl. See Ratchet wheel, below, and 2d Ratch.

Ghettonoun

A quarter of a city where Jews live in greatest numbers.

‘I went to the Ghetto, where the Jews dwell.’;

Ratchetnoun

mechanical device consisting of a toothed wheel or rack engaged with a pawl that permits it to move in only one direction

Ghettonoun

Any section of a town inhabited predominantly by members of a specific ethnic, national or racial group, such segregation usually arising from social or economic pressure. The term is commonly applied to areas in cities having a high concentration of low-income African-Americans.

Ratchetverb

move by degrees in one direction only;

‘a ratcheting lopping tool’;

Ghettonoun

Any isolated group of people.

Ghettonoun

Any group isolated by external pressures, with an implication of inferiority.

Ghettonoun

formerly the restricted quarter of many European cities in which Jews were required to live;

‘the Warsaw ghetto’;

Ghettonoun

any segregated mode of living or working that results from bias or stereotyping;

‘the relative security of the gay ghetto’; ‘no escape from the ghetto of the typing pool’;

Ghettonoun

a poor densely populated city district occupied by a minority ethnic group linked together by economic hardship and social restrictions

Ghetto

A ghetto (Italian pronunciation: [ˈɡetto]; from Venetian ghèto, 'foundry'), often the ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of social, legal, or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other areas of the city.