Fetch
/fɛtʃ/noun
To go and bring back; also, in folklore, a phantom double of a living person.
Did you know?In Irish and Scottish folklore, a fetch was an apparition that looked exactly like a living person, turning an ordinary verb into a word with a genuinely eerie supernatural shadow.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Germanic
PGmc
*fatjaną
“to grasp, seize, or take hold of”
Old English
OE
fettian
“to fetch, obtain, or go after”
Middle English
ME
fecchen
“to bring, retrieve, or get”
Late Middle English
ME
fetche
“a trick, device, or stratagem; later also a ghostly double in folklore”
Modern English
English
fetch
“to go and bring back; also a spirit or apparition in folklore”