Other forms: reached, reaching, reaches
To reach is to stretch your arm out for something — up to the top shelf, across the table for the salt, down into your bag for your keys. It also means to get to a place: we reached the station as the train was pulling in.
From there the word spreads. You reach an agreement, reach a decision, reach the age of forty, reach the final — anything arrived at after effort. You reach someone when you get hold of them: you can reach me on this number. Within reach means close enough to take, and out of reach is the biscuit tin on top of the fridge. In advertising and broadcasting, reach is a noun for the number of people a message actually gets to — a campaign with a reach of two million. Reach out once meant stretching an arm; now half of business email begins with it.
1verbhandTo stretch out your hand or arm to touch or take something.~2%
“She reached across the table for the bread.”
2verbplaceTo arrive at a place, level or point.~78%
“We reached the top of the hill just before noon.”
3verbreachTo arrive at an agreement, decision or conclusion.~14%
“The jury reached a verdict after two days.”
4verbmanageTo manage to get in contact with someone.~2%
“You can reach me on my mobile until six.”
5noundistanceThe distance within which you can stretch out and touch something.~2%
“Keep the medicine out of reach of children.”
6nounnumberThe number of people a message, programme or campaign gets to.~2%
“The advert had a reach of two million viewers.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 21 sentences found in the wild and placed 20 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Reach runs back through Middle English rechen to Old English raecan, to reach, and further to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning to bind or to reach. Dutch reiken and German reichen are the same word in their own mouths.
Proto-Indo-European
*Hreyǵ- — to bind, reach
Proto-Germanic
*raikijaną
Proto-West Germanic
*raikijan
Old English
rǣċan — to reach
Middle English
rechen
English, today
reach
From Middle English rechen, from Old English rǣċan (“to reach”), from Proto-West Germanic raikijan, from Proto-Germanic raikijaną, from the Proto-Indo-European Hreyǵ- (“to bind, reach”). Cognate with Dutch reiken, German reichen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA