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Webster 1913 Edition

fetch

fetch

,
Verb.
I.
To bring one’s self; to make headway; to veer;
as, to
fetch
about; to
fetch
to windward.
Totten.
To fetch away
(Naut.)
,
to break loose; to roll or slide to leeward.
–
To fetch and carry
,
to serve obsequiously, like a trained spaniel.

Webster 1828 Edition

Fetch

FETCH

, v.t.
1.
To go and bring, or simply to bring, that is, to bear a thing towards or to a person.
We will take men to fetch victuals for the people.
Judges 20.
Go to the flock, and fetch me from thence two kids of the goats. Gen. 27.
In the latter passage, fetch signifies only to bring.
2.
To derive; to draw, as from a source.
On you noblest English, whose blood is fetched from fathers of war-proof.
[In this sense, the use is neither common nor elegant.]
3.
To strike at a distance. [Not used.]
The conditions and improvements of weapons are the fetching afar off.
4.
To bring back; to recall; to bring to any state. [Not used or vulgar.]
In smells we see their great and sudden effect in fetching men again, when they swoon.
5.
To bring or draw; as, to fetch a thing within a certain compass.
6.
To make; to perform; as, to fetch a turn; to fetch a leap or bound.
Fetch a compass behind them. 2Sam. 5.
7.
To draw; to heave; as, to fetch a sigh.
8.
To reach; to attain or come to; to arrive at.
We fetched the syren's isle.
9.
To bring; to obtain its price. Wheat fetches only 75 cents the bushel. A commodity is worth what it will fetch.
To fetch out, to bring or draw out; to cause to appear.
To fetch to, to restore, to revive, as from a swoon.
To fetch up, to bring up; to cause to come up or forth.
To fetch a pump, to pour water into it to make it draw water.

FETCH

,
Verb.
I.
To move or turn; as, to fetch about.

FETCH

,
Noun.
A stratagem, by which a thing is indirectly brought to pass, or by which one thing seems intended and another is done; a trick; an artifice; as a fetch of wit.
Straight cast about to over-reach
Th' unwary conqueror with a fetch.

Definition 2024

fetch

fetch

English

Alternative forms

  • fatch, fotch (dialectal)

Verb

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

  1. To retrieve; to bear towards; to go and get.
    • Bible, 1 Kings xvii. 11, 12
      He called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.
    • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
      When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlour, and planted the Mole in an arm-chair in front of it, having fetched down a dressing-gown and slippers for him, and told him river stories till supper-time.
  2. To obtain as price or equivalent; to sell for.
    • Thomas Macaulay (1800-1859)
      Our native horses were held in small esteem, and fetched low prices.
    • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 3, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
      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 bay and ought to fetch a fair price.
    • 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
      The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices).
    If you put some new tyres on it, and clean it up a bit, the car should fetch about $5,000‎
  3. (nautical) To bring or get within reach by going; to reach; to arrive at; to attain; to reach by sailing.
    to fetch headway or sternway
    • George Chapman (1559-1634)
      Meantime flew our ships, and straight we fetched / The siren's isle.
  4. (intransitive) To bring oneself; to make headway; to veer; as, to fetch about; to fetch to windward.
  5. (rare, literary) To take (a breath), to heave (a sigh)
  6. To cause to come; to bring to a particular state.
    • William Barnes (1801-1886)
      They couldn't fetch the butter in the churn.
  7. (obsolete) To recall from a swoon; to revive; sometimes with to.
    to fetch a man to‎
  8. To reduce; to throw.
    • Robert South (1634–1716)
      The sudden trip in wrestling that fetches a man to the ground.
  9. To bring to accomplishment; to achieve; to make; to perform, with certain objects.
    to fetch a compass;  to fetch a leap‎
  10. (nautical, transitive) To make (a pump) draw water by pouring water into the top and working the handle.

Translations

Derived terms

Noun

fetch ‎(plural fetches)

  1. The object of fetching; the source and origin of attraction; a force, quality or propensity which is attracting eg., in a given attribute of person, place, object, principle, etc.
  2. A stratagem by which a thing is indirectly brought to pass, or by which one thing seems intended and another is done; a trick; an artifice.
    • 1665, Robert South, "Jesus of Nazareth proved the true and only promised Messiah", in Twelve Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions, Volume 3, 6th Edition, 1727
      Every little fetch of wit and criticism.
  3. The apparition of a living person; a wraith; one's double (seeing it is supposed to be a sign that one is fey or fated to die)
  4. (computing) The act of fetching data.
    a fetch from a cache

Derived terms

Etymology

From Middle English fecchen, from Old English feċċan, fæċċan ‎(“to fetch”). In one view, an alteration of fetian, fatian ("to fetch, marry"; whence also English fet), from Proto-Germanic *fatōną, *fatjaną ‎(“to fetch”), from Proto-Indo-European *ped- ‎(“foot”).

Pronunciation

  • enPR: fĕch, IPA(key): /fɛtʃ/
  • Rhymes: -ɛtʃ

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