Stretch Meaning
/stɹɛt͡ʃ/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo lengthen by pulling.
verbTo lengthen when pulled.
Sentence Examples
I can't stretch my right arm.
Janet sure knows how to stretch a dollar.
A particularly dangerous stretch of road
CEFR Practice Quiz
After sitting for many hours, you should ____ your legs to improve blood flow.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I have to ____ my legs after sitting in this small chair for more than three hours during the flight.
Word Origin & History
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.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The inner membrane […] because it would stretch and yield, remained unbroken."
— 1659 December 30 (date written), Robert Boyle, New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air, and Its Effects […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] H[enry] Hall, printer to the University, for Tho[mas] Robinson, published 1660, →OCLC:
"Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path[…]. It twisted and turned,[…]and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn. And, back of the lawn, was a big, old-fashioned house, with piazzas stretching in front of it, and all blazing with lights."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
"Behind them, stretching in a long line east and west, were the Roan and Book Cliffs, cut to their base by the river's gorge, and meandering away in long wavy lines distorted by heat haze and the smoke of forest fires."
— 1954, Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West, Houghton Mifflin, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 75:
"Three varieties of wild rice, O. rufipogon, O. officinalis and O. meyeriana, have been found in China, in a zone stretching from Hainan to Taiwan and from Northern Kwangsi to Ching-hung¹ on the Upper Mekong in Yunnan."
— 1984, Science and Civilization in China, volume 6, Cambridge University Press, published 2004, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 483:
"By the fullest exploitation of modern signalling, multiple-unit operation and flying and burrowing junctions the S.R. has greatly increased the capacity of its tracks to carry this growing load of peak-hour passengers, but that capacity is now stretched to the limit."
— 1960 March, “Talking of Trains: The problem of the peak”, in Trains Illustrated, page 130:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
After sitting for many hours, you should ____ your legs to improve blood flow.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I have to ____ my legs after sitting in this small chair for more than three hours during the flight.