rackhook (rakhuk)

In a repeating clock, a part of the striking-mechanism which engages the teeth of the rack in succe ion when the hours are struck; the gathering-piece or pallet. E. H. Knight. racking1 (rak'ing), n. 1. The act of torturing on the rack.-2. Naut., a piece of small stuff used to rack a tackle.3. In metallurgical operations, same as rag ging, 2. [Verbal n. of rack1 , v.] racking2 (rak'ing), n. [Verbal n. of rack8, v.] In the manège, same as rack8. But kanstow pleyen raket to and fro? Chaucer , Troilus, iv. 460. Th' Hail, which the Winde full in his face doth yerk, Smarter than Racquets in a Court re-ierk Balls 'gainst the Walls of the black-boorded house. which wine can be drawn without disturbing the lees, which remain at the bottom. racking-cock (rak'ing-kok), n. A form of faucet used in racking off wine or ale from the cask or from the lees in the fermenting-vat. tennis. He could shoot, play rackets , whist, and cricket better than most people, and was a consummate horseman on any animal under any circumstances. Whyte Melville, White Rose, I. xiii. Some British officers, playing rackets , had struck a ball to where he was sitting. Nineteenth Century , XXVI. 801. 3. A kind of net. Hall i well.-4. A snow-shoe: an Anglicized form of the French raquette. [Rare.] Their [the Canadian Indians'] Dogges are like Foxes, which spend not, neuer giue ouer, and haue rackets tyed vnder their feet, the better to runne on the snow. Purchas, Pilgrimage, p. 753. 5. A broad wooden shoe or patten for a horse or other draft-animal, to enable him to step on marshy or soft ground.-6. A bird's tail-feather shaped like a racket; a spatule. The racket may result from a spatulate enlargement of the webs at or near the end of the feather; or from the lack, natural or artificial, of webbing along a part of the feather, beyond which the feather is webbed; or from coiling of the end of the feather. These formations are exhibited in the motmots, in some humming-birds and birds of paradise, and in various others, and are illustrated in the figures under Momotus, Prion it urus, and Cincinnurus. Some feathers springing from the head acquire a similar shape. See cut under Parotia . holes. 71. A musical instrument of the seventeenth century, consisting of a mouthpiece with a double reed, and a wooden tube repeatedly bent upon itself, and pierced with several finger Its compa was limited, and the tone weak and difficult to produce. Several varieties or sizes were made, as of the bombard, which it resembled. Early in the eighteenth century it was replaced by the modern ba oon. 8. An organ-stop giving tones similar to those of the above instrument. racket2+ (rak'et), v. t. [ Thus, like a tennis-ball, is poor man racketed from one temptation to another, till at last he hazard eternal ruin. Hewyt , Nine Sermons, p. 60. nis-court.