Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a trick, a fraud.

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.
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?
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’.