stretchers

Noun

stretcher (plural stretchers)

1. Someone or something that stretches.
2. A simple litter designed to carry a sick, injured, or dead person.
   • This done, he sank on to a stretcher, and glanced meditatively about the room.1936, F.J. Thwaites, chapter XIV, in The Redemption, Sydney: H. John Edwards, published 1940, page 153

   Synonyms:

   litter, ambulance, dooly

3. A frame on which a canvas is stretched for painting.
   • A twelve-by-fourteen canvas would not pin in his box, so he had to make a stretcher for it, and very neatly he made it, out of strips of butter-box.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 48
4. A device to stretch shoes or gloves.
5. A brick laid with the longest (but least tall) side exposed.
   • The quoins should be two feet long and one foot broad on the bed, and regularly built, stretcher and header alternately1857, John Ewart, The Agriculturist's Assistant
6. A piece of timber used in building.

See all 12 meanings of stretcher