1) We're trying to ratchet down the administrative costs.

2) Costs have been ratcheted down by as much as 50% since 1999.

3) If nothing else, Kim should ratchet down the rhetoric out of his own family's self-interest.

4) Refiners have been reluctant to ratchet down prices, hoping to capture as much profit as possible lest prices shoot higher again, said Sander Cohan, principal at energy consultancy ESAI Inc.

5) He has already managed to ratchet down tensions with the police officers.

6) In rats, the painkiller blocked the brain's ability to strengthen connections, or synapses, that ratchet down reward or pleasure, researchers from Brown University reported in the journal Nature.

7) The sky won't fall, the books will survive, but the culture will ratchet down another notch, and the best readers will never know what they're missing.

8) Pay experts cautioned that at least some companies could decide to ratchet down pay levels as financial results for the rest of 2009 become clearer.

9) As wholesale gas falls in price, profit margins expand, and station owners are in no rush to ratchet down the price at the pump.