fetch

Etymology 1

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.

verb

1. To retrieve; to bear towards; to go and get.
2. To obtain as price or equivalent; to sell for.
   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. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 3, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
   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). 2013-08-03, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847
   If you put some new tyres on it, and clean it up a bit, the car should fetch about $5,000
3. (nautical) To bring or get within reach by going; to reach; to arrive at; to attain; to reach by sailing.
   to fetch headway or sternway
4. (intransitive) To bring oneself; to make headway; to veer; as, to fetch about; to fetch to windward.
5. (rare, literary) To take (a breath), to heave (a sigh)
6. To cause to come; to bring to a particular state.
   They couldn't fetch the butter in the churn. 1879, William Barnes, A Witch
7. (obsolete) To recall from a swoon; to revive; sometimes with to.
   to fetch a man to
8. To reduce; to throw.
   The sudden trip in wrestling that fetches a man to the ground. 1692, Robert South, sermon 28
9. (archaic) To accomplish; to achieve; to perform, with certain objects or actions.
   to fetch a compass;  to fetch a leap
   Ixion[…]turn'd dancer, does nothing but cut capreols, fetch friskals, and leads lavaltoes 1631, Ben Jonson, Chloridia
   He fetches his blow quick and sure. 1692, Robert South, sermon 28
10. (nautical, transitive) To make (a pump) draw water by pouring water into the top and working the handle.

noun

1. (also figurative) An act of fetching, of bringing something from a distance.
   1. (computing, specifically) An act of fetching data.
      a fetch from a cache
2. The object of fetching; the source of an attraction; a force, propensity, or quality which attracts.
3. An area over which wind is blowing (over water) and generating waves.
   When a fetch is close to land, this variability will alter anticipated wind directions and velocities. 1977, Coastal Engineering Research Center (U.S.), Shore Protection Manual, page 29
4. The length of such an area; the distance a wave can travel across a body of water (without obstruction).
   From recently completed radar maps of the Brazilian Amazon I determined the shape, maximum fetch and width and orientation of all the lakes greater than 100 meters across in the floodplain […] 1983, Résumés
   For example, a steady wind of 40-50 kilometres/hour - a Force 6 strong breeze - blowing for 12 hours over an initially calm sea and traversing a fetch of 1000 kilometres could produce a significant wave height […] 2006, Andrew Rose, Sandra Rose, 'Man Overboard!': The HMAS Nizam Tragedy, Red Rose Books, page 48
   Wind waves continue to grow within the fetch area, … A graphical wave hindcasting method by means of Wilson's fetch diagrams produced an estimate of H_(1/3) = 9.4 m and T_(1/3) = 12.3 s over the fetch of about 1,800 km on the 7th of April. 2010, Yoshimi Goda, Random Seas and Design of Maritime Structures, World Scientific, page 66
5. A stratagem or trick; an artifice.
   Every little fetch of wit and criticism. 1665, Robert South, “Jesus of Nazareth proved the true and only promised Messiah”, in Twelve Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions, 6th edition, volume 3, published 1727

intj

1. (Utah) Minced oath for fuck.

Etymology 2

Uncertain; the following possibilities have been suggested: * From fetch-life (“(obsolete, rare) a deity, spirit, etc., who guides the soul of a dead person to the afterlife; a psychopomp”). * From the supposed Old English *fæcce (“evil spirit formerly thought to sit on the chest of a sleeping person; a mare”). * From Old Irish fáith (“seer, soothsayer”).

noun

1. (originally Ireland, dialectal) The apparition of a living person; a person's double, the sight of which is supposedly a sign that they are fated to die soon, a doppelganger; a wraith (“a person's likeness seen just after their death; a ghost, a spectre”).
   I think it was a fetch. … Folk say a fetch is seen at its departing / From a cold house whence it shall lead a soul; / But this comes like a child-birth closing in, / And so perchance it does but signify / The consciousness of death that breaks in all. 1905, Gordon Bottomley, Midsummer Eve, Harting, Petersfield, Hampshire: Pear Tree Press, →OCLC; republished in King Lear’s Wife, The Crier by Night, The Riding to Lithend, Midsummer Eve, Laodice and Danaë: Plays, London: Constable & Company, 1920, →OCLC, page 159
   Several farm maidservants meet to see their future lovers' spirits on Midsummer Eve, but see only the "fetch" or double of one of them, foretelling her death. A summary of Gordon Bottomley’s play Midsummer Eve. 1921, Sterling Andrus Leonard, “Bibliography of Plays for Reading in High Schools”, in Sterling Andrus Leonard, editor, The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays:[…], Boston, Mass.: The Atlantic Monthly Press, →OCLC, page 300
   "If you're after some money," said the millionaire, "move that cat out of the way." Catweazle shook his head. "Mayhap 'tis a fetch." Victor was very taken aback. "A fetch?" he gulped. "That's a witch in the shape of a cat, isn't it?" "Ay," said Catweazle calmly. 1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 80