- present participle of fetch.
fetching
Americanadjective
adjective
-
attractively befitting
a fetching hat
-
charming
a fetching personality
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of fetching
Explanation
To be fetching is to be attractive and beautitful. A fetching woman catches people's interest. When a dog fetches something, he grabs it, just like attractive sights take your interest. Fetching is a word for sights that capture your interest because of their beauty. Usually, this word applies to females: you're most likely to read about a lovely, fetching woman. A beautiful woman who everyone looks at is fetching: she grabs their attention. You could also say other things, like a gorgeous mountain or a well-designed building, are fetching if they grab your attention.
Vocabulary lists containing fetching
The Downstairs Girl
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The Shakespeare Stealer
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Moon Over Manifest
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The three items were sold to a British private collector at Dominic Winter Auctioneers in the Cotswolds on Wednesday, fetching a hammer price of £5,000 - double the estimate.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Processing tomatoes — those used in products such as canned diced tomatoes and ketchup — are also fetching lower prices than they did a few years ago.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 1, 2026
In my case, my 2023 Mercedes EQS had an end-of-lease buyout of nearly $60,000, between $15,000 and $20,000 higher than what used examples were fetching from retailers like CarMax.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
More than 3.5 million people applied for invitation codes for early access, with some codes fetching thousands of dollars on online resale markets.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
The women in our culture are known for working incredibly hard, juggling so many things—raising the children, working on the farm, harvesting, fetching and chopping firewood, and then cooking dinner for the men.
From "How Dare the Sun Rise" by Sandra Uwiringiyimana
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
