To reach out; to extend; to put forth.
To draw out to the full length; to cause to extend in a straight line; as, to stretch a cord or rope.
To cause to extend in breadth; to spread; to expand; as, to stretch cloth; to stretch the wings.
To make tense; to tighten; to distend forcibly.
To draw or pull out to greater length; to strain; as, to stretch a tendon or muscle.
To exaggerate; to extend too far; as, to stretch the truth; to stretch one’s credit.
To be extended; to be drawn out in length or in breadth, or both; to spread; to reach; as, the iron road stretches across the continent; the lake stretches over fifty square miles.
To extend or spread one’s self, or one’s limbs; as, the lazy man yawns and stretches.
To be extended, or to bear extension, without breaking, as elastic or ductile substances.
To strain the truth; to exaggerate; as, a man apt to stretch in his report of facts.
To sail by the wind under press of canvas; as, the ship stretched to the eastward.
Act of stretching, or state of being stretched; reach; effort; struggle; strain; as, a stretch of the limbs; a stretch of the imagination.
A continuous line or surface; a continuous space of time; as, grassy stretches of land.
The extent to which anything may be stretched.
The reach or extent of a vessel’s progress on one tack; a tack or board.
Course; direction; as, the stretch of seams of coal.
An implement consisting of a headpiece having teeth, and a long handle at right angles to it, - used for collecting hay, or other light things which are spread over a large surface, or for breaking and smoothing the earth.
A toothed machine drawn by a horse, - used for collecting hay or grain; a horserake.
A fissure or mineral vein traversing the strata vertically, or nearly so; - called also rake-vein.
The inclination of anything from a perpendicular direction; as, the rake of a roof, a staircase, etc.
A loose, disorderly, vicious man; a person addicted to lewdness and other scandalous vices; a debauchee; a roué.
To collect with a rake; as, to rake hay; - often with up; as, he raked up the fallen leaves.
To collect or draw together with laborious industry; to gather from a wide space; to scrape together; as, to rake together wealth; to rake together slanderous tales; to rake together the rabble of a town.
To pass a rake over; to scrape or scratch with a rake for the purpose of collecting and clearing off something, or for stirring up the soil; as, to rake a lawn; to rake a flower bed.
To search through; to scour; to ransack.
To scrape or scratch across; to pass over quickly and lightly, as a rake does.
To enfilade; to fire in a direction with the length of; in naval engagements, to cannonade, as a ship, on the stern or head so that the balls range the whole length of the deck.
To use a rake, as for searching or for collecting; to scrape; to search minutely.
To pass with violence or rapidity; to scrape along.
To incline from a perpendicular direction; as, a mast rakes aft.
To walk about; to gad or ramble idly.
To act the rake; to lead a dissolute, debauched life.
