fetch

Formsfetches, fetching, fetched

Pluralfetches (some meanings)

1. 1
   go and getverbtransitive

   To go and get something or someone and bring them back; to retrieve.

   Could you fetch me my reading glasses from the kitchen?

   The nurse fetched a wheelchair so the patient wouldn't have to walk to the car.

   Similarget, bring, retrieve, collect

   Note

   The everyday sense keeps a round trip inside it: you go to where the thing is, get it, and come back, which is what sets fetch apart from bring or take. It readily takes two objects (fetch me a glass of water) and pairs with go, as in Shakespeare's "Go fetch them hither." Its Middle English ancestor fecchen could also mean to come for someone and carry them away, or even to steal.

2. 2
   dog gamenoununcountable

   A game between a person and a dog, played by tossing an object for the dog to chase down and return.

   Every evening they took the retriever down to the beach for a game of fetch.

   The puppy hasn't figured out fetch yet; he chases the ball and then lies down with it.

3. 3
   sell forverbtransitive

   To bring in a particular price or its equivalent when sold.

   The painting is expected to fetch more than a million dollars at auction.

   Lots along the lake fetched record prices last summer.

   Similarbring, make, command, realize

   Note

   Here the thing sold is the subject: a car fetches $5,000, and in Macaulay's History of England the native horses fetched low prices. The seller never fetches anything in this sense. Compared with sell for, fetch needs no preposition and puts the weight on what the market will pay, which is why it sits so easily with price, prices and a sum of money.

4. 4
   computingnounfigurativelycountable

   In computing, an act of retrieving data from where it is stored, such as a cache.

   A fetch from the cache is far faster than a trip to main memory.

   The dashboard was slow because it made dozens of separate fetches every time it loaded.

   Similarretrieval

   Note

   Programmers use the noun for a single trip to get data, whether from a cache, from main memory or across a network, and the verb works the same way. Inside a processor it names a stage of its own: the instruction fetch, when the next instruction is read from memory before it is decoded and carried out.

5. 5
   trip to getnounfigurativelycountable

   An act of going to get something and bringing it back from a distance.

   Hauling water up from the creek was a long fetch, and the children made the trip twice a day.

   Without a car, every fetch from the store meant a three-mile walk each way.

   Similartrip, errand

6. 6
   cause to comeverbtransitive

   To cause something to come, or to bring it into a particular state.

   Chopping a whole sack of onions would fetch tears to anyone's eyes.

   One hard blow to the nose fetched blood, and the referee stopped the fight.

   Similarbring, draw

7. 7
   mild curseinterjection

   Used in Utah as a minced oath in place of fuck.

   Oh, fetch! I just locked my keys in the car again.

   Fetch, that hurt! Who left a skateboard on the stairs?

   Similarfudge, shoot, darn

   Note

   A minced oath swaps a harmless word for a taboo one that starts the same way, so the speaker can vent without actually swearing. Fetch is a regional one, tied to Utah, and choosing it is a statement in itself: the speaker wants the force of the oath without the word. Outside Utah, listeners may simply hear the ordinary verb.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   An area of water over which the wind is blowing and generating waves.

   Forecasters tracked a broad fetch of gale-force winds building south of Greenland.

   The swell reaching the coast today was raised in a fetch more than a thousand miles offshore.

   Note

   Coastal engineers and forecasters treat a fetch as a place: the patch of sea under a steady wind where waves are being raised, which may lie far from the shore the swell finally reaches. Its position matters, since near land, as the Shore Protection Manual notes, the wind over a fetch shifts in direction and speed. Its length is the figure engineers work with.

9. 9
   wave distancenouncountable

   The length of open water over which the wind blows and raises waves; the unobstructed distance a wave can travel across a body of water.

   On a small pond the fetch is too short for the wind to raise anything more than ripples.

   Engineers designing the breakwater allowed for a fetch of nearly three hundred miles to the east.

   Note

   Waves grow with fetch. Together with the wind's speed and how long it blows, the length of open water it crosses sets how high the sea can build, so engineers estimate wave heights from all three, and even a floodplain lake can be described by its maximum fetch. Over a short fetch a strong wind raises only small waves; across a long one it can raise a heavy sea.

10. 10
    knock downverbtransitive

    To bring down or throw, as a wrestler brings an opponent to the ground.

    A good leg sweep can fetch even a much heavier opponent to the mat.

    One low tackle fetched the runner to the ground just short of the line.

    Similarbring, throw

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