ratchet up
Increase by degrees
To ratchet up is to increase something incrementally but persistently, like the mechanism of a ratchet wrench that clicks forward notch by notch and prevents backward movement.
The phrase often describes escalation that feels inexorable: They ratcheted up the pressure on lawmakers.
Tensions, prices, rhetoric, and stakes all ratchet up.
The opposite is ratchet down.
- escalateIncrease in severity
- turn up the heatIntensify effort or coercion
- hike upRaise abruptly upward
- intensifyIncrease in degree
- increaseGrowth in amount
raise the stakes · up the ante · notch · pressure · augment · double down · spiral · incremental · one-way · snowball effect · amp up · heighten · stakes · amplify · tension · crank up · rev up · climb
- escalationescalation, escalate, worsen, intensify, crank it up
direction of incremental change
ratchet updial down
Reduce intensity or volume
scale back · wind down · step down · scale down · taper off