fetching

comparative more fetching · superlative most fetching

1. Attractive; pleasant to regard.

   Nurse Cramer had a cute nose and a radiant, blooming complexion dotted with fetching sprays of adorable freckles that Yossarian detested.

   1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 171

   2 more examples

   I am not, I regret to say, a discreet and fetching sleeper. Most people when they nod off look as if they could do with a blanket; I look as if I could do with medical attention.

   2000, Bill Bryson, chapter 1, in In a Sunburned Country, page 11

   “The men in this town have a serious case of pussy affluenza,” says Amy Watanabe, 28, the fetching, tattooed owner of Sake Bar Satsko, a lively izakaya in New York’s East Village.

   2015, Nancy Jo Sales, “Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse””, in Vanity Fair

   Synonyms: alluring, appealing, appetizing, attracting, attractive, catchy, bewitching, captivating

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of fetch

   She was so mad she wouldn't speak to me for quite a spell, but at last I coaxed her into going up to Miss Emmeline's room and fetching down a tintype of the missing Deacon man.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VI, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

plural fetchings

1. The act by which something is fetched.

   These lumpers were also in the habit of inducing their men during the week to send to their pay-house for fetchings of drink, besides the money they were compelled to spend on Saturday night.

   1834, Evidence on drunkenness: presented to the House of Commons