stretcher n.
1. a lie [it SE stretches the truth].
![]() | Reflections Devotions Roman Church in Every-day Book 29 Sept. 1826 665/1: Any story of a Cock and a Bull, will serve their turns to found a Festival upon, [...] though the circumstances are never so improbable. This of removing the Rock is a pretty stretcher . | |
![]() | Dialect of Craven II 176: Stretcher. A notorious lie. | |
![]() | Drama in Pokerville 31: Whenever Mrs. Oscar Dust told a stretcher, he was expected to swear to it. | |
![]() | Dict. Americanisms. | |
![]() | Bell’s Life in Sydney 12 Aug. 2/6: The latter insisted that Connor’s assertion was a stretcher. | |
, , | ![]() | Sl. Dict. |
![]() | (con. c.1840) Huckleberry Finn 225: He told some stretchers, I reckon; and I said I wouldn’t swallow it all. | |
![]() | Three Men in a Boat 248: We plied him with the customary stretchers about the wonderful things we had done. | |
![]() | Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Feb. 4/7: But yesterday was the stretcher. | |
![]() | Making the Corps 170: [T]hey don’t believe the stories he tells them about his father being a sergeant major in the Marine Corps and various other stretchers. |
2. a large penis.
![]() | Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1985) 76: The young fellow had withdrawn that delicious stretcher, with which he had most plentifully drown’d all thoughts of revenge. | |
![]() | My Secret Life (1966) VIII 1532: Some said that they loved to see and handle big ones. None said that such stretchers gave them more physical pleasure than those of moderate size. | |
![]() | Memoirs of Madge Buford 102: ‘In it goes [...] How’s that for a stretcher?’ [...] his big prick and splendid stroking made me forget all but the pleasure of his thrusts. |
3. (US Und.) a racehorse; a greyhound [SAmE stretch, the final run-in of a horserace].
![]() | Vocabulum. | |
![]() | Aus. Sl. Dict. 82: Stretchers, racehorses: grey hounds. |
4. (Anglo-Irish) a layer-out of the dead.
![]() | Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era. |
5. (Aus.) the limit, the extreme example.
![]() | Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Feb. 4/8: There’s no secrets between me an’ Jim [...] But yesterday was the stretcher. | |
![]() | Sun. Times (Perth) 4 Oct. 4/8: I’ve been in many queer places [...] but this is the stretcher. |
6. (UK tramp ) a boot or shoe lace.
![]() | Leamington Spa Courier 20 Sept. 7/1: His real business in life is selling mohair ‘stretchers’ (laces), lead-backed ‘dumps’ (buttons) and ‘dud snails’ (common needles). |
7. a long stretch of road; the journey taken upon it.
![]() | Le Slang. |
8. (US black) the neck.
![]() | N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 15 Nov. 14: Joe Q. Hipp was too solid [...] to wear a tie, so he wrapped a white ringer round his stretcher and locked up the front with a bar. |
9. (US black) a belt.
![]() | ‘Jiver’s Bible’ in Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive. |
10. (US Und.) a sodomite.
![]() | Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
11. (S.Afr. Und.) a judge.
![]() | Crime in S. Afr. 106: A ‘sinker’, a ‘sticker’ or a ‘stretcher’ is a judge. |
12. see stretch n. (2b)
13. see stretch v. (1)
SE in slang uses
In exclamations
an excl. used when seeing someone who is falling down drunk.
![]() | Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 142/1: Git the ambulance (Street, 1897). Declaration of incapacity, generally of a drunken character, cast at the sufferer. Took the place of ‘git the stretcher’ – which was (and is) maintained by the police. |