Link Centre Dictionary

fetch

US/fɛt͡ʃ/ common literary

verb

1.

go or come after and bring or take back

  • “Get me those books over there, please”
  • “Could you bring the wine?”
  • “The dog fetched the hat”
Synonyms
Antonyms
2.

be sold for a certain price

  • “The painting brought $10,000”
  • “The old print fetched a high price at the auction”
Synonyms
3.

take away or remove

  • “The devil will fetch you!”

Origin

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.

Phrases

  • fetch a compass Expressions
  • fetch a wife Expressions
  • fetch about Expressions
  • fetch and carry Expressions
  • fetch away Expressions
  • fetch in Expressions
  • fetch off Expressions
  • fetch quest Expressions

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

Related verbs

Entails

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.