Prefer racket in both American and British English. The variant spelling, racquet, is more recent, dubiously considered more posh, and of romance origin (though which is unknown: French raquette, Italian racchetta, or Spanish raqueta). Avoid the variant except in racquetball, where it is standard, and proper names that use its spelling. Even in the historically upper-class sport of squash, squash racket exceeds squash racquet in written popularity.