Word.ws English Dictionary

stretch-out

stretch-out noun: a practice of industrial operation, especially in the textile industry, by which workers are required to do additional work without a proportional increase in wages.

Noun

stretch-out (plural stretch-outs)

  1. A practice of industrial operation, especially in the textile industry, by which workers are required to do additional work without a proportional increase in wages.
    • The strike committee's statement today […] said the “stretchout system has become a scourge and the principal weapon used by the employers to beat the workers into subjection[.]” […] Of the stretch-out, the committee declared: / “We are sick and tired of listening to people tell us that there is...1934 August 22, “Ways to Avert Textile Strike Come to Front”, in Chattanooga Daily Times, volume 65, number 249, Chattanooga, Tenn., page 2
    Synonyms:
    speedup
  2. A stretch limousine.
    • As time progressed, the Gray Line increased its limo fleet, converted the stretchouts into passenger vehicles (later widely emulated), and brought the first sightseeing buses to the Islands.2004, Robert C. Allen, Creating Hawai'i Tourism: A Memoir, page 118

Synonyms of stretch-out

Antonyms

Forms of stretch-out

pluralstretch-outs
alternative formstretchout

Origin of stretch-out

Deverbal from stretch out.

Questions about stretch-out

What does stretch-out mean?
Stretch-out means a practice of industrial operation, especially in the textile industry, by which workers are required to do additional work without a proportional increase in wages.
What part of speech is stretch-out?
Stretch-out is a noun.
What is the plural of stretch-out?
The plural of stretch-out is stretch-outs.

Words near stretch-out in the dictionary

  1. stretch'd
  2. stretch-attend
  3. stretch-attend posture
  4. stretch-attend postures
  5. stretch-attends
  6. stretch-out
  7. stretch-outs
  8. stretch-shortening cycle
  9. stretchabilities
  10. stretchability
  11. stretchable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stretch-out (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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