(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.
Reprehensible
Definition:
(a.) Worthy of reprehension; culpable; censurable; blamable.
Example Sentences:
(1) The fact that the security service was in possession of and retained the copy tape until the early summer of 1985 and did not bring it to the attention of Mr Stalker is wholly reprehensible,” he wrote.
(2) Details of the episode in October 2011 surfaced publicly last summer when the Bank's executive director for markets, Paul Fisher, told MPs that claims about the "thoroughly reprehensible" allegations had been referred to the regulator.
(3) The authors urge that patients suffering from from facial paralysis should be referred to O.-R.-L. departments right from the start and not when all other methods of treatment have been tried, often with reprehensible empiricism, and found unsuccessful.
(4) And let me say that I find much of the media utterly reprehensible and in need of a new regulator that it can probably get away with setting up itself … Newspapers: Ever so 'umble, sir.
(5) By far the most shocking thing was that McBride was a civil servant at the time, acting in a highly political and thoroughly reprehensible manner.
(6) The dumping of excrement on the statue was “reprehensible and regrettable” and an investigation was under way, the university said in a statement last week.
(7) If you care about people on low incomes, if you care about refugees, if you care about tackling climate change, if you care about the fact that the NHS is chronically underfunded, about divisions, lack of opportunity, failure to maximise potential in the north, then backing a leadership which is going to fail to stand up for any of those causes is utterly reprehensible.
(8) Describing the award as “morally reprehensible” and calling for it to be rescinded, the petition has gathered more than 500 staff signatures.
(9) "It's reprehensible, and there's no room for grey areas," Miliband said.
(10) Like phone hacking or MPs' fiddled expenses, this is an issue that only needs to be described to seem reprehensible.
(11) The sectarian conflict responsible for much of the war's reprehensible human cost was caused in part by the occupying forces' division of the country's political system along sectarian lines.
(12) But corporations, which thrive on their sense of power and control, hate nothing more than having to say sorry unless they are forced to do so because they are squirming on the end of a hook for doing something particularly reprehensible.
(13) Jean Ping, head of the commission of the African Union continental grouping, said he was "deeply concerned by the reprehensible acts currently being perpetrated by some elements of the Malian army".
(14) Cable has alleged that his close friend leaked the ICM polling to the Guardian, describing it as "utterly reprehensible" and "totally unacceptable", and adding that there was no leadership issue.
(15) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sean Spicer on Assad regime: ‘Even Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons’ Despite one more ineffective attempt to make things right (“Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable.”) Spicer’s combination of callousness and historical amnesia inspired a range of critics – from Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi to Steven Goldstein, director of the Anne Frank Center – to demand that he be fired.
(16) Turkey had last month accused Britain of a “reprehensible” delay in informing the Turkish authorities over the departure to its territory of the three teenage girls.
(17) And many, many other Americans feel the same way.” White House press secretary Josh Earnest called Trump’s remarks “incendiary” and “morally reprehensible”, adding: “What Donald Trump said yesterday disqualifies him from serving as president.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump’s anti-Muslim comments ‘disqualify him for president’, says White House .
(18) Bailey said it was "reprehensible" of George Osborne, the chancellor, to refuse to publicly debate the potential threats and refer to any deal as no more than "a commercial matter between the companies".
(19) Photograph: Paul McErlane Handing down his judgment in McCauley’s appeal last September, Sir Declan Morgan, the lord chief justice of Northern Ireland, was in agreement with Sampson: “The failure of the security service to disclose the tape to Mr Stalker and to provide it to the prosecution was reprehensible.” Furthermore, the deputy head of special branch had initially misled the director of public prosecutions by leading him to believe that there was no listening device in the hayshed.
(20) The events which took place on 17 and 18 February in Malakal Protection of Civilians site are utterly reprehensible,” said Eugene Owusu, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan.