Fetch

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /fɛt͡ʃ/

Definitions

1. To go and bring back something or someone from another place
2. To go to a specific place in order to retrieve an object or person and bring them back to the original location
3. To travel to a location and return with an item or person for someone else

Etymology: The most striking thread here is how far "fetch" once travelled in meaning. Its Old English ancestor, "feċċan", meant to bring or draw something, but Middle English "fecchen" stretched it to cover stealing and even carrying someone away to kill them. The gentler sense of simply going to get something came later, and the harsher senses faded. The verb sits in a family of Germanic words built around the idea of seizing or grasping. Old English "fetian" and "fatian" meant to bring near, to obtain, or even to fetch a wife, and the same root gave Dutch "vatten", German "fassen", and Swedish "fatta", which all carry the sense of grasping, catching, or understanding. Modern English "fet", meaning to fetch, is an obsolete relative. The ultimate origin is uncertain. The Proto-Germanic base is usually traced to an Indo-European root meaning to step or walk, but how a word for walking became a word for seizing is not clearly documented.

Synonyms: retrieve, get, bring, collect

Antonyms: leave, abandon