# fetch

/ˈfɛtʃ/ (US) · /fˈɛtʃ/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/fetch
Updated: 2026-06-20

## Senses

### 2. to sell for a price

verb · CEFR B2

to be sold for a particular amount of money.

For teachers: to achieve or command a specific price at sale or auction.

- The old painting is expected to fetch over five thousand dollars at the auction.
- Despite its poor condition, the rare first-edition manuscript fetched a record-breaking sum when it finally went under the hammer.

### 3. to retrieve data

verb · CEFR C1 · Technical

to get information from a computer's memory.

For teachers: to retrieve an instruction or a unit of data from memory for processing.

- The processor needs to fetch the next instruction before it can finish the task.
- The system's performance was bottlenecked by the time required to fetch large datasets from the remote server.

### 4. a game with a dog

noun · CEFR B1

a game where you throw a ball or stick and a dog brings it back.

For teachers: a game of retrieval played with a pet, typically a dog.

- We spent the afternoon playing fetch with the dog in the park.
- The golden retriever never seemed to tire of fetch, returning the tennis ball to his owner's feet with relentless enthusiasm.

### 5. distance of wind over water

noun · CEFR C2 · Technical

the distance that wind blows over open water without hitting anything.

For teachers: the length of water over which a given wind has blown, determining the size of the waves produced.

- The long fetch across the lake allowed the wind to create very large waves.
- Because the bay has a limited fetch, the water remains relatively calm even during significant gale-force winds.

### 6. a ghost or double

noun · CEFR C2 · Literary · Dialect

the ghost of a living person, often seen as a bad sign.

For teachers: the apparition or double of a living person, traditionally interpreted as an omen of their approaching death.

- In the old story, the man saw his own fetch walking toward him on the road.
- The protagonist was haunted by the sight of his fetch, a silent double that appeared in the mist as a harbinger of his demise.

## Examples

- Could you please fetch me a glass of water?
- The dog loves to fetch the tennis ball whenever we go to the park.
- The assistant was sent to the archives to fetch the original manuscript, as the digital copies were too blurry to read accurately.

---

From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.