DCHP-1 Online

racket

• n. a snowshoe.

  See also: Indian racket  raquette  snowshoe ((n.))   racquet ((n.))  

  • Though racket is an English form and has existed for some three centuries side by side with the French form, it is now virtually obsolete in this sense. Like racquet, its use in modern times seems to have been confined to Labrador.

  • 1665  (1885)  They are broad, made like racketts, that they may goe in the snow and not sinke when they runne after the eland or other beast.
  • 1760  . . . notwithstanding they . . . are even better able to skip over snowy mountains with their legs than we with our rackets, yet he used to run them down.
  • 1823  They use rackets or snow-shoes, by means of which they walk on the snow without sinking.
  • 1906  Schooners, skiffs, punts, snowshoes ("rackets," in common parlance), were ordinary dependences.