English▸ plural noun [treated as singular] a ball game for two or four people played with rackets in a plain four-walled court, distinguished from squash in particular by the use of a solid, harder ball.
– ORIGIN late Middle English (also in the singular): probably from French raquette, apparently a variant of rachette ‘palm of the hand, carpus’, from medieval Latin rasceta, based on Arabic rāḥa ‘palm of the hand’.