stretching

1. 1
   noununcountable

   A form of exercise in which a muscle or muscle group is deliberately lengthened to improve its felt elasticity and reaffirm comfortable muscle tone.

   The physical therapist recommended gentle stretching to ease the tension in his shoulders.

   Dancers rely on daily stretching to maintain the flexibility their routines demand.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of making something longer, wider, or tighter by pulling on it.

   Repeated stretching of the canvas eventually loosened its grip on the frame.

   The stretching of the rope under heavy load weakened its fibers over time.

   Similarlengthening, elongation, extension, straining, pulling

   Oppositeshrinking, contraction, shortening

   Note

   A noun that can count separate acts as well as name the process. Victor Regnault's Elements of Chemistry (1859) puts skins through "washings, treadings, and stretchings" before they turn pliant, and each pass is one stretching. This noun comes from Middle English strecching. The participle has the same spelling but descends from Old English streċċende, whose different ending later merged with this one.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle of stretch.

   The workers were stretching a tarp over the open trailer before the rain hit.

   The runners are stretching their hamstrings near the starting line.

   Note

   One form does two grammatical jobs. After be it builds the progressive (they are stretching a tarp), and as a gerund it fills a noun slot (stretching a budget takes planning). It keeps the verb's transitivity. Workers stretch a tarp, but a fabric can simply be stretching under strain. It also carries the figurative uses, as in stretching a limited resource or stretching the truth by exaggeration.

4. 4
   adjective

   Demanding a high level of effort or performance to achieve.

   The board approved a stretching sales goal for the coming year.

   Her training schedule was deliberately stretching, designed to expand her limits.

   Similarchallenging, demanding, ambitious, testing, exacting

   Oppositeeasy, undemanding, modest, unambitious

   Note

   A participle that has become a true adjective. It grades with more stretching and most stretching, which no verb form can do. It works before a noun (a stretching goal) and after be (the schedule was stretching). In that second position it can be mistaken for the progressive verb. If very or more fits, you have the adjective, meaning "demanding," not "getting longer."

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