fetch

Webster's Dictionary (1913)

Origin: OE. fecchen, AS. feccan, perh. the same word as fetian; or cf. facian to wish to get, OFries. faka to prepare. √77. Cf. Fet, transitive verb

1. To bear toward the person speaking, or the person or thing from whose point of view the action is contemplated; to go and bring; to get.

Time will run back and fetch the age of gold.— John Milton

He called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand.— 1 Kings xvii. 11, 12.

2. To obtain as price or equivalent; to sell for.

Our native horses were held in small esteem, and fetched low prices.— Thomas Babington Macaulay

3. To recall from a swoon; to revive; — sometimes with to; as, to fetch a man to.

Fetching men again when they swoon.— Francis, Baron Verulam Bacon

4. To reduce; to throw.

The sudden trip in wrestling that fetches a man to the ground.— Robert South

5. To bring to accomplishment; to achieve; to make; to perform, with certain objects; as, to fetch a compass; to fetch a leap; to fetch a sigh.

I'll fetch a turn about the garden.— William Shakespeare

He fetches his blow quick and sure.— Robert South

6. To bring or get within reach by going; to reach; to arrive at; to attain; to reach by sailing.

Meantine flew our ships, and straight we fetched The siren's isle.— George Chapman

7. To cause to come; to bring to a particular state.

They could n't fetch the butter in the churn.— William Barnes

To fetch a compass Nautical, to make a circuit; to take a circuitous route going to a place. — To fetch a pump, to make it draw water by pouring water into the top and working the handle. — To fetch headway or To fetch sternway Nautical, to move ahead or astern. — To fetch out, to develop. “The skill of the polisher fetches out the colors [of marble]” Joseph Addison — To fetch up. (a) To overtake. obsolete “Says [the hare], I can fetch up the tortoise when I please.” Sir Roger L'Estrange (b) To stop suddenly.

To bring one's self; to make headway; to veer; as, to fetch about; to fetch to windward. Benjamin J. Totten

To fetch away Nautical, to break loose; to roll or slide to leeward. — To fetch and carry, to serve obsequiously, like a trained spaniel.

1. 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.

Every little fetch of wit and criticism.— Robert South

2. The apparation of a living person; a wraith.

The very fetch and ghost of Mrs. Gamp.— Charles Dickens

3. The unobstructed region of the ocean over which the wind blows to generate waves.

4. Hence: The length of such a region.

Fetch candle, a light seen at night, superstitiously believed to portend a person's death.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54 · with additions: RH

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing

A Macintosh program by Jim Matthews <Fetch@Dartmouth.edu> for transferring files using File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Fetch requires a Mac 512KE, System 4.1, and either KSP 1.03 or MacTCP.

Fetch is Copyright 1992, Trustees of Dartmouth College.

(ftp://ftp.Dartmouth.edu/pub/mac/Fetch_2.1.2.sit.hqx). (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/computing/systems/mac/info-mac/comm/tcp).

(1994-11-30)