Word.ws English Dictionary

astretch

astretch adverb: stretched out, extended.

Adverb

astretch (not comparable)

  1. Stretched out, extended.
    • A thing half dead, with weary arms astretch / For anything to cling to1854, John Stanyan Bigg, Night and the Soul, London: Groombridge, Scene 5, p. 69
    • My second mate was standing […] with his short, thick legs astretch, for the gale had left a considerable swell behind it,1897, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Striped Chest”, in The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport, London: Smith, Elder, published 1905, page 204
  2. Straining to perceive, alert (of sensory organs or mental faculties).
    • […] with attentive gaze,
      As winds dispelled the dark’ning haze,
      My eyes astretch—and all my mind afloat,
      To learn what sort of beings filled the boat;1833, Hamlet Wood, The Negro: An Historical Poem […] describing the unchristian and wicked principle and practices of slavery, Burslem, UK: for the author, p. 41
    • At the same moment every faculty is keenly astretch for further information which may aid in the conclusion he must come to before he stirs hand or foot.1897, Louis Robinson, Wild Traits in Tame Animals, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, Introduction, pp. 19-20

astretch meaning in Tamil

astretch in Tamil

படல்

Examples of astretch in a sentence

  • This time I heard something new in the beat of the drums, a trip-hammer knock that sent my heart racing, a stutter that made me choke and grin, that set my heels tapping, my toes astretch.1987, Edith L. B. Turner, “The Fish Eagle”, in The Spirit and the Drum, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, page 97:
  • And when, very late, I heard a car coming up the zigzag I jumped to my feet, nerves instantly astretch,1958, Mary Stewart, chapter 9, in Nine Coaches Waiting, New York: Fawcett Crest, published 1970, page 127:
  • Undoubtedly the old bag had been hovering just inside her own doorway, ears astretch to catch his fairy footstep.1978, Nicolas Freeling, chapter 15, in The Night Lords,, New York: Pantheon, page 63:

Origin of astretch

From a- + stretch.

Questions about astretch

What does astretch mean?
Astretch means stretched out, extended.
What is astretch in Tamil?
Astretch in Tamil is படல். See Astretch meaning in Tamil.
How do you use astretch in a sentence?
This time I heard something new in the beat of the drums, a trip-hammer knock that sent my heart racing, a stutter that made me choke and grin, that set my heels tapping, my toes astretch.
What part of speech is astretch?
Astretch is an adverb.

Words near astretch in the dictionary

  1. AstraZeneca
  2. AstraZenecas
  3. Astrea
  4. astream
  5. astreated
  6. astretch
  7. astrexine
  8. Astria
  9. astrict
  10. astricted
  11. astricting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: astretch (page history and authors); astretch (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “astretch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/astretch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.