Word.ws English Dictionary

reach-around

US/ˈɹit͡ʃəˌɹaʊnd/

reach-around noun: manual stimulation of a sexual partner's genitals during anal or vaginal intercourse from behind.

Noun

reach-around (plural reach-arounds)

  1. Manual stimulation of a sexual partner's genitals during anal or vaginal intercourse from behind.
    • I bet you're the kind of guy that would fuck a person in the ass and not even have the goddamn common courtesy to give him a reach-around. I'll be watching you.1987, Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr, Gustav Hasford, Full Metal Jacket (motion picture), spoken by Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (Ronald Lee Ermey)
    • Tom adored to give pleasure while Gore has always liked to boast that he has never knowingly or intentionally gratified any of his partners. Not even a sighing reach-around by the sound of it.2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic, published 2011, page 153
  2. (broadly, idiomatic) An ostensibly thoughtful gesture, especially one performed to win favour or mitigate unfair treatment.
  3. A passing style in which the ballhandler performs a crossover step in the direction of the intended pass and then extends his or her arms to throw the pass around the defender.

Forms of reach-around

pluralreach-arounds
alternative formreacharound

Origin of reach-around

Deverbal from reach around.

Questions about reach-around

What does reach-around mean?
Reach-around means manual stimulation of a sexual partner's genitals during anal or vaginal intercourse from behind.
What part of speech is reach-around?
Reach-around is a noun.
How do you pronounce reach-around?
Reach-around is pronounced /ˈɹit͡ʃəˌɹaʊnd/ (US).
What is the plural of reach-around?
The plural of reach-around is reach-arounds.

Words near reach-around in the dictionary

  1. reach past
  2. reach rock bottom
  3. reach stacker
  4. reach stackers
  5. reach'd
  6. reach-around
  7. reach-arounds
  8. reach-me-down
  9. reach-me-downs
  10. reach-through
  11. reachabilities

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reach-around (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-reach-around.ogg.

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