Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To come or go after and take or bring back.
  • intransitive verb To cause to come.
  • intransitive verb To bring in as a price.
  • intransitive verb To interest or attract.
  • intransitive verb To draw in (breath); inhale.
  • intransitive verb To bring forth (a sigh, for example) with obvious effort.
  • intransitive verb Informal To deliver (a blow) by striking; deal.
  • intransitive verb Nautical To arrive at; reach.
  • intransitive verb To go after something and return with it.
  • intransitive verb To retrieve killed game. Used of a hunting dog.
  • intransitive verb To take an indirect route.
  • intransitive verb To hold a course.
  • intransitive verb To turn about; veer.
  • noun The act or an instance of fetching.
  • noun A stratagem or trick.
  • noun The distance over which a wind blows.
  • noun The distance traveled by waves with no obstruction.
  • noun A ghost; an apparition.
  • noun A doppelgänger.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An obsolete and dialectal form of vetch.
  • noun The apparition of a living person; a wraith.
  • noun When the Earl of Cornwall met the fetch of his friend
  • noun The act of going and bringing; a reaching out after something; a drawing in as from a distance.
  • noun The course through or over which anything is fetched or carried; hence, the reach or stretch of space between two connecting or related points; a line of progress or relation from point to point.
  • 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.
  • To bring; usually, to go and bring; go, get, and bring or conduct to the person who gives the command or to the place where the command is given: as, fetch a chair from the other room.
  • To derive; draw, as from a source.
  • To draw; heave: as, to fetch a groan.
  • To bring or draw into any desired relation or state; bring down, as game; bring to terms; cause to come or yield, or to meet one's wishes: as, money will fetch him if persuasion will not; a strong pull will fetch it.
  • To allure; attract; fascinate.
  • To bring back; bring to; revive.
  • To cause to come; bring.
  • To bring as an equivalent; procure in exchange, as a price: as, a commodity is worth what it will fetch; the last lot fetched only a small sum.
  • To go and take.
  • To bring to accomplishment; effect; take, make, or perform: as, to fetch a leap or bound; to fetch a high note in singing.
  • To deliver; strike; reach in striking: as, to fetch one a blow on the head.
  • To reach; attain to; arrive at; make: as, to fetch the cape by noon; to fetch the Downs.
  • To carry off.
  • To rear, as a child; bring up.
  • To cause to stop suddenly in any course; bring to a standstill. In nautical use, same as to bring up .
  • (d ) To come up with; overtake; catch up with.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English fecchen, from Old English feccean; see ped- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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 *fatōnan, *fatjanan (“to fetch”), from Proto-Indo-European *ped- (“foot”).

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Examples

  • Force-fetch is an unpleasant but extremely important part of the retriever training program ...

    New Caption Contest: Iaconelli with Fly Rod 2009

  • Force-fetch is an unpleasant but extremely important part of the retriever training program ...

    New Caption Contest: Iaconelli with Fly Rod 2009

  • For instance, Mr. Pichlmaier recalls that one junior chef was asked to regularly fetch from a Chinese shop a special dried-herb mixture that Mr. Angelo used to make the African chicken sauce.

    The Dish: African Chicken Jessica Yu 2008

  • Whenever there came a moment free from work, when Doña Josefa had no water to fetch from the public well, nor gold to stitch upon the altar cloth for the Church of Santa Maria del Rosario, then she would run out of her house into the street and call:

    This Way to Christmas 1916

  • The dinner he lets them fetch from a cooking-school in the neighborhood.

    The Girl from the Marsh Croft 1910

  • And the girls went out to see him mount his horse, which the boys had gone to fetch from the stable.

    Kirsteen: The Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago Margaret 1891

  • As an earnest of all this, houses and lands shall again fetch a good price in Judah and Jerusalem, and, though now they are a drug, there shall again be a sufficient number of purchasers (v. 43, 44): Fields shall be bought in this land, and people will covet to have lands here rather than any where else.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume IV (Isaiah to Malachi) 1721

  • Luxury goods are also less affected by high commodity costs given the significant price premiums coveted designer labels fetch.

    Luxury Sales at Risk Ellen Byron 2011

  • "A fetch is the sight of a person, when the person himself is far awa-, " he said.

    Drums of Autumn Gabaldon, Diana 1997

  • The size and energy of a wave is influenced by: the length of time that the wind has been blowing. the strength of the wind. how far the wave has travelled (called the fetch).

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows kparkins 2010

Comments

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  • The fetch (Anglo-Saxon fæcce; also known as fylgja), is a person's guardian spirit or familiar. The fetch is an attendant spirit that is bound to someone through the process of their naming until their death. The fetch is held "to appear as an animal resembling one's disposition or as a member of the opposite sex". If the fetch is perceived in animal form, it will most often assume this form. Fetches may take the form of: wolves, bears, cats, hawks, eagles, sea faring birds, and livestock. The fetch is hailed to be perceived by those with second sight. The fetch usually controls the allocation of one's mægen (spiritual energy) in accordance with one's wyrd. The fetch also records an individual's actions and intentions within their personal wyrd. Fetchs are recorded as fleeing the wicked in The Eddas.

    _Wikipedia

    February 11, 2008

  • See also doppelganger

    September 27, 2008

  • Fetch not only means 'go and bring back' but also 'remove and take away

    September 8, 2009

  • "slang for cool or awsome. Used in mean girls by Grechen Weener."

    Urban Dictionary

    Seen in the wild on Twitter: "A few days overdue, but keynote by @emckean at STC2010 was fetch."

    May 6, 2010

  • Anyone know if the nautical usages are still current?

    April 20, 2011

  • nautical sausages!

    April 20, 2011

  • The fetch is an attendant spirit that is bound to someone through the process of their naming until their death. The fetch is held "to appear as an animal resembling one's disposition or as a member of the opposite sex".
    Does this remind anyone else of the "daemons" from Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy?

    April 20, 2011

  • I haven't read those books (yet), but the idea is a very old one.

    Fetches may take the form of ... livestock
    .

    Wouldn't it suck if your fetch was a sheep or something.

    April 20, 2011

  • Yeah, at least with a dog you could play that game where you throw something and the dog brings it back and you throw it again and the dog brings it back again and then you pretend to throw it but you keep it in your hand and the dog just looks at you and so then you have to say "Where'd it go? Where'd it go?" until the dog is sufficiently tricked into going after something that isn't there and then you feel guilty and throw it anyway and the dog trots right back to you with it.

    Sheep aren't very good at that game.

    April 20, 2011

  • My fetch is a stingray. As it turns out.

    April 20, 2011

  • Or a sloth. No, you want something dynamic for your fetch. I'm glad mine's a pigeon.

    April 20, 2011

  • I'm pretty sure my fetch is a towel.

    April 20, 2011

  • My fetch is a saxophone.

    April 21, 2011

  • I thought it was the clarinet.

    April 21, 2011

  • Easy mistake. That's the finches' fetch.

    April 21, 2011