fetch

Verb

fetch (third-person singular simple present fetches, present participle fetching, simple past and past participle fetched)

1. (ditransitive, transitive) To retrieve; to bear towards; to go and get.
   • You have to fetch some sugar in order to proceed with the recipe.
   • I'm thirsty. Can you fetch me a glass of water, please?
2. (transitive) To obtain as price or equivalent; to sell for.
   • Our native horses[…] were held in small esteem, and fetched low prices.1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter III, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and...
   • My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, take 'em with me to Wellmouth, and peddle 'em out. Clams was fairly scarce over that side of the...1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter III, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
3. To bring or get within reach by going; to reach; to arrive at; to attain; to reach by sailing.
   • to fetch headway or sternway
   • Meantime flew our ships, and straight we fetched / The siren's isle.1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615...
4. (intransitive) To bring oneself; to make headway; to veer; as, to fetch about; to fetch to windward.
5. (literary, rare, transitive) To take (a breath); to heave (a sigh).
   • The hurt nigger moaned feebly somewhere near by, and then fetched a deep sigh that made me mend my pace away from there.1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I
6. (transitive) To cause to come; to bring to a particular state.
   • They couldn't fetch the butter in the churn.1879, William Barnes, A Witch
7. (obsolete, transitive) To recall from a swoon; to revive; sometimes with to.
   • to fetch a man to
   • Fetching men again when they swoon.1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted...
8. (transitive) To reduce; to throw.
   • The sudden trip in wrestling that fetches a man to the ground.1692, Robert South, sermon 28
9. (archaic, transitive) To accomplish; to achieve; to perform, with certain objects or actions.
   • to fetch a compass; to fetch a leap
   • I'll fetch a turn about the garden.1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
10. (transitive) To make (a pump) draw water by pouring water into the top and working the handle.

Noun (1)

fetch (plural fetches)

1. (also, figuratively) An act of fetching, of bringing something from a distance.
   1. (also, figuratively, specifically) An act of fetching data.
      • a fetch from a cache
2. The object of fetching; the source of an attraction; a force, propensity, or quality which attracts.
3. An area over which wind is blowing (over water) and generating waves.
   • When a fetch is close to land, this variability will alter anticipated wind directions and velocities.1977, Coastal Engineering Research Center (U.S.), Shore Protection Manual, page 29
4. The length of such an area; the distance a wave can travel across a body of water (without obstruction).
   • From recently completed radar maps of the Brazilian Amazon I determined the shape, maximum fetch and width and orientation of all the lakes greater than 100 meters across in the floodplain […]1983, Résumés
   • For example, a steady wind of 40-50 kilometres/hour - a Force 6 strong breeze - blowing for 12 hours over an initially calm sea and traversing a fetch of 1000 kilometres could produce a significant wave height […]2006, Andrew Rose, Sandra Rose, 'Man Overboard!': The HMAS Nizam Tragedy, Red Rose Books, →ISBN, page 48
5. A stratagem or trick; an artifice.
   • They used cunning fetches to swindle money out of the gullible.
   • Every little fetch of wit and criticism.1665, Robert South, “Jesus of Nazareth proved the true and only promised Messiah”, in Twelve Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions, 6th edition, volume 3, published 1727

   Synonyms:

   contrivance, dodge

6. (uncountable) A game played with a dog in which a person throws an object for the dog to retrieve.

Interjection

1. (Utah) Minced oath for fuck.

Noun (2)

fetch (plural fetches)

1. (dialectal) The apparition of a living person; a person's double, the sight of which is supposedly a sign that they are fated to die soon, a doppelganger; a wraith (“a person's likeness seen just after their death; a ghost, a spectre”).
   • In these dilapidated articles of dress she had, on principle, arrayed herself, time out of mind, on such occasions as the present; for this at once expressed a decent amount of veneration for the deceased, and invited the next of kin to present her with a fresher set of weeds: an appeal so...1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, “The Reader is Brought into Communication with Some Professional Persons, and Sheds a Tear over the Filial Piety of Good Mr. Jonas”, in The Life and...
   • I think it was a fetch. [...] Folk say a fetch is seen at its departing / From a cold house whence it shall lead a soul; / But this comes like a child-birth closing in, / And so perchance it does but signify / The consciousness of death that breaks in all.1905, Gordon Bottomley, Midsummer Eve, Harting, Petersfield, Hampshire: Pear Tree Press, →OCLC; republished in King Lear’s Wife, The Crier by Night, The Riding to Lithend, Midsummer Eve, Laodice and...