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fetch

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Pronunciation

fetch1 go and bring back

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English fecchen,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English feccan (“to bring, fetch; to seek, gain, take”),[2][5][4] a variant of the older fetian, also fatian, to bring near, bring back, obtain, marry.[2][4][6] The OED, following Platt and Sievers, explains the “cc” as a change of “ti” in the forms of fetian that had an i, since the other forms kept the t.[7] The form without the change survived as fet until the 17th century,[2] and in dialect well into the 19th.[8] The Old English verb is probably from Proto-Germanic *fatōną (“to hold, seize; to fetch”),[9][4] and is cognate with Old Frisian fatia (“to grasp, seize, contain”), Middle Low German vāten, Middle Dutch vatten, Old High German fazzōn (“to climb, mount, take in”) (modern fassen (“to grasp, contain”)) and Old Norse feta (“to find one's way”).[4][2][9] Etymonline and Klein connect it with foot, from Proto-Indo-European *ped- (“foot”);[2][10][11] Barnhart gives the root the sense "grasp, hold".[4] Hoad suggests that the verb first meant "to put in a vessel", comparing vat,[6][12] and Ayto relates it to a Germanic base meaning "hold", also found in fettle.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To go and get a person or thing and bring it back: about 1000, in a version of Ælfric's Genesis;[4][7] the West Saxon Gospels have it with a thing as object, and Bosworth–Toller quotes the woman of Samaria who came to draw (feccan) water.[7][5] The Middle English fecchen is found probably before 1200, in the Ancrene Riwle.[4]

Semantic evolution

From the basic sense the verb spread widely.[2] Chaucer used it 19 times, mostly for "to fetch, bring back" or "to take away".[13] In Middle English it could also mean "to steal" (1377–1640, first in Piers Plowman) and "to obtain, come by" (about 1200 to 1656).[7] From Chaucer (about 1374) it meant to cause to come or to draw forth, as blood or tears.[7][12] Of goods, it meant to sell for a price from 1605, in Bacon;[7][2] of people, to attract or charm from 1607, in Jonson's Volpone,[7] which gave the adjective fetching, "alluring", in 1880, after an earlier sense "crafty, scheming" (1581).[4] Other uses were nautical (16th–17th centuries), to bring someone round from a faint (1621–1744), to make butter "come" by churning (1844), and to prime a pump (1769);[7][2] 17th-century writers on language "fetched" a word's etymology.[2] The phrase fetch and carry is recorded from Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona (before 1616),[7] and the use for a dog retrieving dates from about 1600.[2] The noun, an act of fetching, is from the 1540s;[2][7] it also meant a trick or stratagem (before 1547), which Johnson (1755) defined as an artifice "by which one thing seems intended and another is done".[7][14] At sea it meant an act of tacking (1555) and later the stretch of open water over which the wind blows (1867).[7][12] The dog's game is recorded from 1887 in the OED, and "fetch" was recommended as a command for training hunting dogs by 1889.[7][2] English dialects used the forms fatch, fotch, vetch and fesh.[15] The slang adjective fetch, "attractive", a shortening of fetching, comes from the film Mean Girls (2004).[16]

Timeline

  • c. 1000 – Old English feccan, to fetch a person, in a version of Ælfric's Genesis.[4][7]
  • before 1200 – Middle English fecchen, in the Ancrene Riwle.[4]
  • c. 1374 – to cause to come, draw forth (Chaucer).[7]
  • 1377 – to steal (obsolete by 1640).[7]
  • before 1547 – noun, a trick, stratagem.[7]
  • 1549 – noun, the action of fetching.[7][2]
  • 1555 – noun, an act of tacking.[7]
  • 1581 – fetching, crafty.[4]
  • 1605 – to sell for a price.[7][2]
  • 1607 – to attract, charm.[7]
  • before 1616 – fetch and carry.[7]
  • 1867 – noun, the stretch of water over which the wind blows.[7]
  • 1880 – fetching, attractive.[4]
  • 1887 – the game of fetch played with a dog.[7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To go after something or someone and bring it back: Could you fetch my coat from the car?[17][11][7]
  2. To cause to come; to bring out or draw forth: The shouting fetched the neighbours from their houses.[17][7]
  3. To sell for a particular price: The painting fetched two thousand pounds at auction.[17][11][7]
  4. (of a dog) To retrieve game or a thrown object.[17][7]
  5. To give out a sigh or groan.[17][12]
  6. (informal) To deal a blow: She fetched him a slap.[17][12]
  7. (informal) To attract or charm.[17][7]
  8. (nautical) To reach a place by sailing, or to sail on a course.[17][7]
  9. (obsolete, 1377–1640) To steal.[7][3]

Noun

  1. An act of fetching.[11][7][12]
  2. (nautical) The stretch of open water over which the wind blows, or the distance it covers.[7][12]
  3. (archaic) A trick or stratagem.[11][12][14]

Word family

  • fetcher
  • unfetched
  • fetch up
  • fetching
  • far-fetched

fetch2 apparition, double

Etymology

The apparition is of unknown origin.[7][11][12][10][2] The OED considers it plausible that it is short for a compound of the verb such as fetch-life, a spirit that fetches the soul of the dying,[7][18] but also notes that an Old English fæcce, found beside mære (“nightmare”) in the Corpus Glossary (about 800), may be its source.[7] Weekley also suggested fetch-light, a corpse-candle.[18]

Earliest recorded meaning

The apparition or double of a living person: 1787, in Grose's Provincial Glossary, which assigns it to the north of England.[7][2]

Semantic evolution

The OED finds no other evidence that the word was used in the north of England, and says it was in popular use mainly in Ireland.[7] The fetch was believed to appear shortly before the death of the person it represents, as an omen.[2][11][12] The English Dialect Dictionary records it in Ireland, the north, Yorkshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Pembrokeshire and Hampshire.[15] By extension it came to mean an exact counterpart of something,[11] and Dickens wrote of "the very fetch and ghost of Mrs Gamp".[18]

Timeline

  • 1787 – an apparition or double of a living person.[7][2]
  • 1841 – fetch-like, the same.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The ghostly double of a living person, seen as an omen of that person's death; a wraith.[11][12][7]
  2. Something that looks exactly like another; a counterpart.[11]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  18. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray