3. (old).—A likeness: e.g., the very fetch of him = his very image or
spit (q.v.). Also an apparition.
Verb (colloquial).—1. To please; to excite admiration; to arouse
attention or interest.
1607. Dekker, Westward Ho! Act ii., Sc. 2. Earl. Ha! Bird. O, I
thought I should fetch you: you can ‘ha’ at that; I’ll make you hem
anon.
1610. Jonson, Alchemist, II. This will fetch ’em, And make them
haste towards their gulling more. A man must deal like a rough
nurse, and fright Those that are froward, to an appetite.
1727. Gay, Beggar’s Opera, Act I., Sc. 8. Polly. Give her another
glass, Sir; my Mama drinks double the quantity whenever she is out
of order. This, you see, fetches her.
1864. E. Yates, Broken to Harness, ch. v., p. 48 (1873). But now he
was certainly fetched, as his friends would call it, and began to
feel an interest in Miss Townshend, which he had never felt for any
other person.
1867–70. C. G. Leland, Hans. Breitmann’s Ballads. Dot fetched him.
He shtood all shpell-bound.
1879. Justin McCarthy, Donna Quixote, ch. xvii. She was quite
clever enough to take on any part that might best commend her to
the people she sought to please; and she thought she had hit upon
the best way to fetch Gabrielle, as she would herself have put it.
1882. Besant, All Sorts and Cond. of Men, ch. xxx. You shall be my
assistant: you shall play the piano and come on dressed in a pink
costoom, which generally fetches at an entertainment.
1883. Referee, 1 April, p. 2, col. 4. There were scenes, though,
wherein she fairly fetched her audience.
1884. S. L. Clemens (‘M. Twain’), Huckleberry Finn, xxi., 205.
Hamlet’s soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in
Shakespeare. Ah, it’s sublime, sublime! Always fetches the house.
1884. G. A. Sala, in Ill. Lon. News, 17 May, p. 470, col. 3. The
maritime conflagration fetched the audience, especially the pit and
gallery.