Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a trick, a fraud.

1559		A myrroure for magistrates xxxvi: My father prayed mine vncle take the payne / To threaten him, his vices to refrayne. / But be false traytour, butcherly murdring wretch, / To get the crowne, began to fetch a fetch.
1566		W. Adlington (trans) Golden Asse 105: I smell[ed] his crafty and subtill fetche, and fear[ed] least he would worke some mischiefe withall .
1568		Hist. of Jacob and Esau V iv: Ah hypocrite, ah hedgecreeper, ah sembling wretche: I will be euen with thee for this subtill fetche.
1576		R. Edwards The paradyse of daynty deuises 20: Lo how false freendes, can frame a fetch, to winne the wil with wyles, / To sauce their sleightes with sugred sops, & shadowe harme wt smiles.
1590		The cobler of Caunterburie 23: [I]t may be a fetch to make the poore Cobler a Cuckhold.
1602		Marston Antonios reuenge n.p.: Shall I speake freely? Good Andrugio’s dead: / And I doe feare a fetch; but would I durst speake. / I doe mistrust.
1617		Middleton & Rowley A Fair Quarrel V i: Was this your cunning fetch, To fetch me out of prison, for ever to marry me Unto a strumpet?
1622		E. de Refuge [trans.] A treatise of the court 85: [I]t is a fetch and subtiltie [...] to put out our legge to make a man fall, thereby to binde and obliege him to vs, in succouring and lifting him vp.
1637		C. Dow Innovations unjustly charged 346: This then is but a fetch, and brought in onely to increase the heape of odium upon the Bishops.
1645		M. Blake The great question 29: [T]his [...] was only a fetch of yours, to bring about some farther thing which you intended.
1655		H. Hammond The disarmers dexterities examined 17: [T]his is but a fetch, the prettiest that ever S. W. met with.
1665		R. Scot The discovery of witchcraft 26: But to affirm it sometimes to be a Devil, and sometimes a Snake [is] a fetch (methinks) beyond the compass of all divinity.
1678		Sieur de Subligny [trans.] The mock Clelia 290: The Lady talked of a Spirit [...] whether truely or no, I know not; yet I think it was but a fetch to give her Gallant a hint.
1684		S. Butler Hudibras 387: But Sidrophel, as fulls of tricks, / As Rota-men of Politicks, / Streight cast about to over-reach / Th’ unwary Conqu’ror with a fetch.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Fetch a Trick or Wheedle. A meer Fetch, that is far fetched, or brought in by Head and Shoulders.
1715		‘Nickydemus Ninnyhammer’ Homer in a nut-shell 22: Therefore he thought it a good fetch / To send Atrides a damn’d Bitch.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1727		J. Gay Beggar’s Opera II xiii: Be pacified, my dear Lucy – This is all a Fetch of Polly’s, to make me desperate with you in case I get off.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 112: A mere fetch to gammon the tongues of the crew.
1888		S.O. Addy Sheffield Gloss. 73: Fetch, a trick.

2. the act of eliciting secrets from a victim.

1823

‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 76: A Fetch, a heave, and a lifter would be synonimous [sic], if they stood without context. Finesse being used to obtain any man’s secrets, is a fetch; if much labour is employed, resembling a heaving at the capstan, ‘tis a heave; but a single effort, by which the person operated upon is brought to think highly of self, is a lifter.

3. a gullible person, a ‘sucker’.

1898

Regiment 7/3: ‘I tipped him summat handsome, not only to show I was no fetch, but to make him hould his tongue’.