fetch
1 Americanverb (used with object)
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to go and bring back; return with; get.
to go up a hill to fetch a pail of water.
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to cause to come; bring.
to fetch a doctor.
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to sell for or bring (a price, financial return, etc.).
The horse fetched $50 more than it cost.
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Informal. to charm; captivate.
Her beauty fetched the coldest hearts.
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to take (a breath).
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to utter (a sigh, groan, etc.).
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to deal or deliver (a stroke, blow, etc.).
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to perform or execute (a movement, step, leap, etc.).
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Chiefly Nautical and British Dialect. to reach; arrive at.
to fetch port.
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Hunting. (of a dog) to retrieve (game).
verb (used without object)
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to go and bring things.
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Chiefly Nautical. to move or maneuver.
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Hunting. to retrieve game (often used as a command to a dog).
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to go by an indirect route; circle (often followed by around orabout ).
We fetched around through the outer suburbs.
noun
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the act of fetching.
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the distance of fetching.
a long fetch.
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Oceanography.
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an area where ocean waves are being generated by the wind.
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the length of such an area.
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the reach or stretch of a thing.
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a trick; dodge.
verb phrase
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fetch about (of a sailing vessel) to come onto a new tack.
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fetch up
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Informal. to arrive or stop.
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Older Use. to raise (children); bring up.
She had to fetch up her younger sisters.
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Nautical. (of a vessel) to come to a halt, as by lowering an anchor or running aground; bring up.
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idioms
noun
verb
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to go after and bring back; get
to fetch help
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to cause to come; bring or draw forth
the noise fetched him from the cellar
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(also intr) to cost or sell for (a certain price)
the table fetched six hundred pounds
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to utter (a sigh, groan, etc)
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informal to deal (a blow, slap, etc)
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(also intr) nautical to arrive at or proceed by sailing
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informal to attract
to be fetched by an idea
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(used esp as a command to dogs) to retrieve (shot game, an object thrown, etc)
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rare to draw in (a breath, gasp, etc), esp with difficulty
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to perform menial tasks or run errands
noun
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the reach, stretch, etc, of a mechanism
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a trick or stratagem
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the distance in the direction of the prevailing wind that air or water can travel continuously without obstruction
noun
Usage
What else does fetch mean? Fetch is slang for “cool” or “awesome" and is not, in fact, from England. It started as a joke in the movie Mean Girls, only to catch on off-screen.
Synonym Usage
See bring.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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fetchsimple
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fetchessimple
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have fetchedperfect
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has fetchedperfect
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am fetchingprogressive
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are fetchingprogressive
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is fetchingprogressive
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have been fetchingperfect progressive
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has been fetchingperfect progressive
Past
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fetchedsimple
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had fetchedperfect
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was fetchingprogressive
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were fetchingprogressive
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had been fetchingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of fetch1
First recorded before 1000; Middle English fecchen, facchen, Old English fecc(e)an, fæccan “to bring back”; akin to German fassen “to grasp”
Origin of fetch2
First recorded in 1780–90; origin unknown; perhaps short for fetch-life one sent to fetch the soul of a dying person
Explanation
To fetch something is to go and get it. "Go fetch!" you might shout after your dog while throwing a stick into the yard. Fetch comes from the Old English fatian meaning "grasp." When a dog fetches a bone, it grasps it in its mouth. You can ask your sister to fetch or grab your backpack off the table. If you sell something for a good price, you can fetch, or bring in, a decent amount of money. If you are sick of playing fetch, you might try to fetch a good price for your pooch.
Vocabulary lists containing fetch
Unit 1: Telling Details
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"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, Chapters 12–15
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Unit 1: Telling Details
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
An album of original bird watercolours by William Weston Young are expected to fetch up to £25,000.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
Also new to the story is Independence, Kan., itself, which in the book is an offstage place to which Pa will sometimes go to fetch necessities, disappearing from the story until he returns.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
The CEO transition this year sparked a new analysis and a quick decision that ESPN, FX and ABC are worth more to Disney’s digital ambitions than they would fetch on the market.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
But as the artificial-intelligence hardware trade continues to suck up investor dollars, shares of the data-analytics company have come to fetch a slightly less outrageous multiple.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 25, 2026
I pass the park that Mom always used to take us to, where I’ve been taking Mav to play fetch just about every day before and after school, flee through the shadows of the trees.
From "Red Flags and Butterflies" by Sheryl Azzam
Thrifted Wilt Chamberlain jacket fetches $89,600 at auction.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 21, 2026
On resale sites, the $175 jersey now fetches over $300 on the popular resale site Goat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 16, 2026
Assuming it fetches $400 million, the mansion tax alone would be $23.8 million.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2026
With inflation soaring, the dollar now fetches about 480 pesos, making his monthly income worth less than $10.
From Salon ● Feb. 15, 2026
Chou fetches water from the well and pours some over Kim’s feet, rinsing the blood off.
From "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers" by Loung Ung
Kobe Bryant’s sneakers from the game in which he tore his Achilles tendon — and hit two free throws before he left the court — fetched $660,000.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
And, speaking of holy grails: Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” fetched $32.5 million.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
The letters and photographs sold for £48,640 at auction, while the ice axe fetched £38,400.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026
Palantir, Broadcom, Nvidia, Intel and Alphabet were among nearly 70 U.S.-listed companies that fetched a multiple of at least 10 times trailing revenue at the start of this week.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
He stoked the fire, put coffee on, fed Mr. Whiskers a saucer of tinned milk, and fetched me another pail of water to fill the reservoir.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
Kranti Vishwakarma, 18, spends four or five hours fetching water for her household.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
Nedoune, a Tuareg herder in his fifties, said he was fetching water two years ago in the northern Timbuktu region when a convoy spotted him.
From Barron's ● May 19, 2026
Through Stacy’s fetching sadness, we come to know that maybe a certain motivational speaker was right.
From Salon ● Mar. 23, 2026
Khan’s younger son fell for Durrushehvar’s fetching cousin, and so the two couples wed in Nice in 1931 in an elaborate wedding before taking ship for Hyderabad.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 4, 2026
My job in the group includes fetching water for the shrimp catchers, helping untangle their nets, and separating the shrimp from weeds.
From "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers" by Loung Ung
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.