fetch
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: fĕch
ipa: /fɛt͡ʃ/
note: Southern US, African-American Vernacular, obsolete
enpr: fŏch
ipa: /fɑt͡ʃ/
note: Southern US, African-American Vernacular, obsolete
rhymes: -ɛtʃ
Forms: form: fetches
form: fetching
form: fetched
form: fetched
form: fatch
form: fotch
Etymology: The verb is derived from Middle English fecchen (“to get and bring back, fetch; to come for, get and take away; to steal; to carry away to kill; to search for; to obtain, procure”) [and other forms], from Old English feċċan, fæċċan, feccean (“to fetch, bring; to draw; to gain, take; to seek”), a variant of fetian, fatian (“to bring near, fetch; to acquire, obtain; to bring on, induce; to fetch a wife, marry”) and possibly related to Old English facian, fācian (“to acquire, obtain; to try to obtain; to get; to get to, reach”), both from Proto-Germanic *fatōną, *fatjaną (“to hold, seize; to fetch”), from Proto-Indo-European *ped- (“to step, walk; to fall, stumble”).
The English word is cognate with Dutch vatten (“to apprehend, catch; to grasp; to understand”), German fassen (“to catch, grasp; to capture, seize”), English fet (“(obsolete) to fetch”), Faroese fata (“to grasp, understand”), Danish fatte (“to grasp, understand”), Swedish fatta (“to grasp, understand”), Icelandic feta (“to go, step”), West Frisian fetsje (“to grasp”).
The noun is derived from the verb.
Senses: examples: text: You have to fetch some sugar in order to proceed with the recipe.
text: I'm thirsty. Can you fetch me a glass of water, please?
text: SATURNINUS: Go fetch them hither to us presently.
TITUS: Why, there they are, both baked in that pie,
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.
ref: c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:
text: He called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Kings xvii:11-12:
text: 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.
ref: 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:
glosses: To retrieve; to bear towards; to go and get.
examples: text: Our native horses[…] were held in small esteem, and fetched low prices.
ref: 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter III, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter III, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
text: 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).
ref: 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
text: If you put some new tyres on it, and clean it up a bit, the car should fetch about $5,000
glosses: To obtain as price or equivalent; to sell for.
examples: text: to fetch headway or sternway
text: Meantime flew our ships, and straight we fetched / The siren's isle.
ref: 1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615, →OCLC; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volume (please specify the book number), London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857, →OCLC:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To bring or get within reach by going; to reach; to arrive at; to attain; to reach by sailing.
glosses: To bring oneself; to make headway; to veer; as, to fetch about; to fetch to windward.
examples: text: The hurt nigger moaned feebly somewhere near by, and then fetched a deep sigh that made me mend my pace away from there.
ref: 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I:
glosses: To take (a breath); to heave (a sigh).
examples: text: They couldn't fetch the butter in the churn.
ref: 1879, William Barnes, A Witch:
glosses: To cause to come; to bring to a particular state.
examples: text: to fetch a man to
text: Fetching men again when they swoon.
ref: 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:
glosses: To recall from a swoon; to revive; sometimes with to.
examples: text: The sudden trip in wrestling that fetches a man to the ground.
ref: 1692, Robert South, sermon 28
glosses: To reduce; to throw.
examples: text: to fetch a compass;  to fetch a leap
text: I'll fetch a turn about the garden.
ref: 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
text: Ixion[…]turn'd dancer, does nothing but cut capreols, fetch friskals, and leads lavaltoes
ref: 1631, Ben Jonson, Chloridia:
text: He fetches his blow quick and sure.
ref: 1692, Robert South, sermon 28
glosses: To accomplish; to achieve; to perform, with certain objects or actions.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To make (a pump) draw water by pouring water into the top and working the handle.
Synonyms: collect
Derived terms: word: farfetch
word: fetchable
word: fetcher
word: fetchy
word: misfetch
word: prefetch
word: refetch
word: unfetchable
word: unfetched
sense: Expressions
word: fetch about
sense: Expressions
word: fetch a compass
sense: Expressions
word: fetch and carry
sense: Expressions
word: fetch away
sense: Expressions
word: fetch a wife
sense: Expressions
word: fetch in
sense: Expressions
word: fetch off
sense: Expressions
word: fetch quest
sense: Expressions
word: fetch up
sense: Expressions
word: fetch way