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Green’s Dictionary of Slang

fetch up v.

[orig. naut.]

1. to recuperate from an illness, to recover one’s health.

1889–90

Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.

2. (orig. US naut.) to arrive at a destination, intentionally or otherwise.

1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms 136: to fetch up. To stop suddenly [...] It is a nautical vulgarism, the figure being that of a ship which is suddenly brought to, while at full speed and with all her sails set.
1849		W.C. Hall ‘Mike Hooter’s Fight with the ‘Bar’’ Spirit of the Times 10 Nov. (N.Y.) 452: The fust thing I diskiver, he fotch up kerlumpus down in the water in Cole’s creek.
1850		‘Ned Buntline’ G’hals of N.Y. 11: There’s no knowing, Mrs. Granger says, ‘where he’ll fetch up’.
1855		‘See the Elephant’ in Lingenfelter et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 88: [I] then fetched up in Hangtown Jail.
1891		W. De Vere ‘A Black Hills Sermon’ Tramp Poems 21: I’ve fetched up with the ‘Webfeet’ way down here on old Puget Sound.
1901		‘Miles Franklin’ My Brilliant Career 145: It was not long before I fetched up at Dogtrap homestead.
1914		M. Glass Potash and Perlmutter 139: So I boarded a freight over to West Thirtieth Street and fetched up in Walla Walla, Washington.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 93: Fetch Up, To: To arrive.
1949		Wodehouse Mating Season 31: Eventually we fetched up in Trafalgar Square.
1954		Wodehouse Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 46: The prisoner [...] would be lucky if he didn’t fetch up on Devil’s Island.
1960		Wodehouse Jeeves in the Offing 99: I didn’t fetch up at journey’s end till well past midnight.
1973		A. Bennett Habeus Corpus Act I: Then we fetched up in Rhodesia.
1996		A. Close Official and Doubtful 335: He was the one who fetched up at Jack’s funeral.
2000		Guardian 14 Jan. 32: A group of under-10s fetching up in their school holiday at the training ground looking for autographs.
2002		M. Roddis Lonely Planet Valencia and the Costa Blanca 52: If a town has more than one post office, your mail will fetch up at the main one unless another is specified in the address.