reach
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: rēch
ipa: /ɹiːt͡ʃ/
rhymes: -iːtʃ
homophone: reech
Forms: form: reaches
Etymology: From Middle English rechen, from Old English rǣċan (“to reach”), from Proto-West Germanic *raikijan, from Proto-Germanic *raikijaną, from the Proto-Indo-European *Hreyǵ- (“to bind, reach”).
Senses: glosses: The act of stretching or extending; extension.
examples: text: The fruit is beyond my reach.
text: to be within reach of cannon shot
text: […] and we have learned not to fire at any of the dinosaurs unless we can keep out of their reach for at least two minutes after hitting them in the brain or spine, or five minutes after puncturing their hearts—it takes them so long to die.
ref: 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VI, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:
text: You like to hear about gold.
A king filled his prison room
As full as the room could hold
To the top of his reach on the wall
With every known shape of the stuff.
ref: 1936, Robert Frost, “The Vindictives”, in A Further Range:
glosses: The ability to reach or touch with the person, a limb, or something held or thrown.
examples: text: Drawn by others who had deeper reaches than themselves to matters which they least intended.
ref: a. 1628 (date written), John Hayward, The Life, and Raigne of King Edward the Sixt, London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press, and J. Lichfield at Oxford?] for Iohn Partridge, […], published 1630, →OCLC:
text: Be sure yourself and your own reach to know.
ref: 1711 May, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W[illiam] Lewis […]; and sold by W[illiam] Taylor […], T[homas] Osborn[e] […], and J[ohn] Graves […], →OCLC:
glosses: The power of stretching out or extending action, influence, or the like; power of attainment or management; extent of force or capacity.
examples: text: And on the left hand, hell, / With long reach, interposed.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: I am to pray you not to strain my speech / To grosser issues, nor to larger reach / Than to suspicion.
ref: c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:
text: While points measure the number of times the average person in a group sees an ad, reach measures the percentage of people in a group that see an ad at least once. Increasing the reach of an ad becomes increasingly expensive as you go along (for the mathematically inclined, it is an exponential function).
ref: 1999, Evan J. Mandery, The Campaign: Rudy Giuliani, Ruth Messenger, Al Sharpton, and the Race to be Mayor of New York City:
glosses: Extent; stretch; expanse; hence, application; influence; result; scope.
examples: text: To call George eloquent is certainly a reach.
glosses: An exaggeration; an extension beyond evidence or normal; a stretch.
topics: boxing
government
hobbies
lifestyle
martial-arts
military
politics
sports
war
glosses: The distance a boxer's arm can extend to land a blow.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: Any point of sail in which the wind comes from the side of a vessel, excluding close-hauled.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: The distance traversed between tacks.
examples: text: the gulfe Iasius, and all the coast thereof is very full of creekes and reaches.
ref: 1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “(please specify |book=I to XXXVII)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. […], (please specify |tome=1 or 2), London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC:
text: The river's wooded reach.
ref: 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “(please specify |part=Prologue or Rpilogue, or |canto=I to CXXIX)”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:
text: The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return.
ref: 1899 March, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number MI, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part II, page 483:
text: All three parallel valleys of the Llynvi, Garw and Ogmore are much the same in physical character: the lower reaches are wooded and not unattractive, but as the railway climbs on ever-steepening grades, the hills on either hand grow barer and closer together, while in all respects the scene becomes more sombre, with the terraced, slate-roofed colliery towns and the road, railway and river all struggling for space in the narrowing defiles.
ref: 1955 July, D. S. Barrie, “Railways of the Bridgend District”, in Railway Magazine, page 449:
text: December 2011, Dan Houston, Sailing a classic yacht on the Thames, Classic Boat Magazine
Close-hauled past flats at Island Gardens opposite the old Royal Naval College at Greenwich we’d been making more than seven knots over the ground and we came close enough to touch the wall. It had felt like roller-blading – long lee-bowed boards down the reaches of this historic river. They have such great names: Bugsby’s Reach, Gallions [Reach], Fiddler’s [Reach] or the evocative Lower Hope [Reach].
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: A stretch of a watercourse which can be sailed in one reach (in the previous sense). An extended portion of water; a stretch; a straightish portion of a stream, river, or arm of the sea extending up into the land, as from one turn to another. By extension, the adjacent land.
glosses: A level stretch of a watercourse, as between rapids in a river or locks in a canal. (examples?)
examples: text: Lower down, in a little reach of the lagoon there grew a clump of casuarinas, those timid isolates that withdraw from other trees, selecting their own privacy, which is for ever whispering secrets up in their feathery fronds, set in motion by the slightest breeze.
ref: 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 134:
text: 2002, Russell Allen, "Incantations of the Apprentice", on Symphony X, The Odyssey.
Through eerie reach of ancient woods / Where lumbering mists arise / I journey for nines moons of the year / To where a land of legend lies
glosses: An extended portion or area of land or water.
examples: text: The Duke of Parma had particular reaches and ends of his own, under hand, to cross the design.
ref: a. 1627 (date written), Francis [Bacon], “Considerations Touching a Warre with Spaine. […]”, in William Rawley, editor, Certaine Miscellany Works of the Right Honourable Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount S. Alban. […], London: […] I. Hauiland for Humphrey Robinson, […], published 1629, →OCLC:
glosses: An article to obtain an advantage.
examples: text: They leaped ahead just as Ruth came to the side of the long reach that connected the small pair of front wheels with the huge wheels in the rear.
ref: 1913, Alice B. Emerson, Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp, Chapter 7:
glosses: The pole or rod connecting the rear axle with the forward bolster of a wagon.
Derived terms: sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: arm's reach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: beam reach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: boardinghouse reach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: broad reach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: close reach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: dry reach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: Dutch reach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: ear-reach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: earreach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: eyereach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: gunreach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: head reach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: in reach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: lower reaches
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: middle reaches
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: out of reach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: reach-around
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: reachless
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: reach stacker
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: sea-reach
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: upper reaches
sense: Terms derived from reach (noun)
word: within reach