(n.) That which locks or unlocks a movement; a catch, pawl, or dog; especially, in clockwork, the catch which locks and unlocks the wheelwork in striking.
Example Sentences:
(1) Eighty people, including the outspoken journalist Pravit Rojanaphruk from the Nation newspaper and the former education minister Chaturon Chaisaeng, who was publicly arrested on Tuesday, remain in detention.
(2) Her story is an incredible tale of triumph over tragedy: a tormented childhood during China's Cultural Revolution, detention and forced exile after exposing female infanticide – then glittering success as the head of a major US technology firm.
(3) He was first allowed to leave Atatürk airport for a Turkish detention camp, before finally being sent to Australia in early June.
(4) In practice this would probably be vetoed by China, which has close links with North Korea and maintains a policy of sending back people found to have fled across the border, despite widespread evidence that they face mistreatment and detention on their return.
(5) While his citizens were being beaten and tormented in illegal detention, spokesmen for the then prime minister, Tony Blair, declared: "The Italian police had a difficult job to do.
(6) In his letter Abd El Fattah highlights the arbitrary nature of many of their detentions, the torture to which thousands have probably been subjected – and the apathy towards, and often enthusiasm for, such malpractice among the public.
(7) As for his detention following a possible conviction … although Mr Aswat would have access to mental health services regardless of which prison he was be detained in, his extradition to a country where he had no ties and where he would face an uncertain future in an as yet undetermined institution, and possibly be subjected to the highly restrictive regime in ADX Florence, would violate article 3 of the convention."
(8) Nauru refugee 'release' shows neither detention nor drawn-out processing were ever necessary | Joyce Chia Read more On Monday the Nauruan government declared “detention had ended” on the island, after a weekend announcement that detainees would be allowed to move freely about the island at all times.
(9) UN spokesman Samir Ghattas said a "strong protest" had been made to Libya about the detention of the official.
(10) Viktoria Vibhakar, a former senior child protection manager on Nauru, said she felt a duty to tell Australians about the abuses occurring at the detention centre.
(11) Those who have committed a crime on British soil can expect to serve their prison sentence, and then be held in a prison-like detention centre with no definite date of release while the UK Border Agency works out how or if they can be deported – a process that can take months, or even years.
(12) Getting them to safety is now vital.” While the EU’s hotspots approach improved the fingerprinting and security vetting of migrants, the auditors said that funding and relocation “bottlenecks” had extended the detention of migrants, with disastrous consequences for children.
(13) He is scheduled to return to court on Monday for a detention hearing and will enter a plea on 6 January.
(14) During their detention by Pakistani authorities the women, one of whom was wounded in the Abbottabad raid, were interviewed by American intelligence agencies.
(15) Across all UK immigration detention centres, it reported that the number of incidents of self-harm requiring medical attention more than doubled between 2012 and 2014 from 150 to at least 306.
(16) Werya is so, so important,” Boochani says in a series of interviews from detention.
(17) But defenders of Ihat recall the notorious case of Baha Mousa , an Iraqi who died in British detention, and note that the MoD has paid out £22m in compensation to victims of alleged abuse in Iraq.
(18) They need to close the detention centre down,” she said.
(19) The inquiry report found the Nauru detention centre was not a safe environment for asylum seekers, and called for children to be removed from the centre .
(20) Here, anyway, is what increasingly seems to be the future: slick corporate logos flashing from prisons, hospitals, schools, detention centres, defence facilities, police stations and more, and a cut-price society pitched somewhere between Margaret Thatcher and Philip K Dick .
Ratchet
Definition:
(n.) A pawl, click, or detent, for holding or propelling a ratchet wheel, or ratch, etc.
(n.) A mechanism composed of a ratchet wheel, or ratch, and pawl. See Ratchet wheel, below, and 2d Ratch.
Example Sentences:
(1) But similar accusations have been levelled by Anders Fogh Rasmussen , the secretary general of Nato, and by pro-shale officials in Romania and Lithuania , as cold war-style tensions have ratcheted.
(2) President Obama is to meet today with members of the National Governors Association – a prime opportunity for the president to ratchet up the pressure on Republicans to make a deal.
(3) Muller's ratchet is an important concept in population genetics.
(4) The prolonged estrogen requirement during the lag period is not truly discontinuous as previously suggested but rather can be satisfied by discontinuous pulses of estrogen in a ratchet-like fashion because of the stability of their effects.
(5) "There has been a ratcheting down of deterrence gestures by the US, and that has helped cool the situation a little," said John Delury, a North Korea analyst at Yonsei University in Seoul.
(6) Muller's ratchet could have significant implications for variability of disease severity during virus outbreaks, since genetic bottlenecks must often occur during respiratory droplet transmissions and during spread of low-yield RNA viruses from one body site to another (as with human immunodeficiency virus).
(7) North Korea again ratcheted up the tension in its nuclear standoff with the world by declaring yesterday that it would "weaponise" all of its plutonium and threatening its opponents with military action.
(8) The effect of this ratcheting motion is to subtract from the DNA molecule's forward movement, at each step, an amount which is proportional to its length.
(9) This sets up a ratchet effect each year and means that pay almost never goes down.
(10) Croatia has bused hundreds of migrants to its border with Hungary, ratcheting up tensions in Europe’s refugee crisis as police fired tear gas to drive back several hundred people trying to enter Slovenia .
(11) Especially because Trump suggested that he never settled cases and derided others who did settle them.” The looming move to the White House ratcheted up pressure, Tobias said.
(12) Once these kick in in earnest, they will sweep many species out of their habitability zones, and ratchet up the extinction rate still further.
(13) Speaking soon afterwards, Tony Blair said it was time to "ratchet up the international and diplomatic pressure" on Iran and demonstrate Tehran's "total isolation" on the issue.
(14) It would drive precious talent abroad and would be used by those in other banks to ratchet up their own salaries.
(15) Their voices will act like a ratchet, driving up ambition on climate.
(16) The report warned that the five-year program of cuts imposed by the Abbott government started gently but would “ratchet sharply upwards” in coming years.
(17) Ratcheting up the pressure ahead of tomorrow's Summit in Brussels, Hollande also said he would fight German attempts to create a federalised eurozone.
(18) The tension ratcheted up when the team decamped to Paris before the show, especially when American Vogue editor Anna Wintour swung by to cast her eye over the work.
(19) The Israeli government is reportedly fearful that any guidelines agreed in Paris would be turned into another UN resolution before Trump’s inauguration, and it has ratcheted up its rhetoric, presenting itself as the victim of an international conspiracy.
(20) On Tuesday, president Bashar al-Assad ratcheted up his own language by describing the crisis as "a real war" and pledged to do everything necessary to prevail.