Other forms: stretches, stretched, stretching
Stretch means to pull something out until it is longer. You stretch before a run, arms above your head and one heel pushed back; a jumper stretches at the elbows; a rubber band stretches until it stings your finger.
Land and time stretch as well: the beach stretches for three miles, the meeting stretched into the evening. Money stretches when you make a small amount cover a lot, and the truth stretches when someone tells it generously. The noun is a length of something continuous — a stretch of motorway, a stretch of good weather — and at a stretch means without a break, as in four hours at a stretch. To stretch your legs is to get up and walk after sitting too long. Keep it apart from strain: you stretch a muscle to keep it loose, and you strain it when you pull it too far.
1verbstretchTo pull your arms, legs or body out to their full length.~12%
“He stretched and yawned before getting out of the chair.”
2verbbecomeTo become longer or wider when pulled, or to make something do this.~29%
“The wool stretched out of shape in the wash.”
3verbspreadTo spread out over a distance or a length of time.~12%
“The queue stretched right round the corner.”
4nouncontinuousA continuous area of land, water or road.~47%
“A dull stretch of road with nothing to look at.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 18 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
The root of stretch means the opposite of stretching. Old English streccan comes from Proto-West Germanic strakkjan, to make taut or tight, and behind that sits a Proto-Indo-European root meaning stiff or rigid. Pull a thing long and it goes tight — the word kept the tightness and let the length follow.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)treg-
Proto-West Germanic
*strakkjan — to stretch, make taut or tight
Old English
streċċan — to stretch, hold out, extend, spread out, prostrate
Middle English
strecchen
English, today
stretch
Built from
From Middle English strecchen, from Old English streċċan (“to stretch, hold out, extend, spread out, prostrate”), from Proto-West Germanic strakkjan (“to stretch, make taut or tight”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)treg-, streg-, treg- (“stiff, rigid”). Cognate with West Frisian strekke, Dutch strekken (“to stretch, straighten”), German strecken (“to stretch, straighten, elongate”), Danish strække (“to stretch”), Swedish sträcka (“to stretch”), Dutch strak (“taut, tight”), Albanian shtriqem (“to stretch”). More at stark.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA