different between stretch vs distance

English

Etymology

From Middle English strecchen, from Old English stre??an (“to stretch, hold out, extend, spread out, prostrate”), from Proto-West Germanic *strakkjan (“to stretch, make taut or tight”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)treg-, *streg-, *treg- (“stiff, rigid”). Cognate with West Frisian strekke, Dutch strekken (“to stretch, straighten”), German strecken (“to stretch, straighten, elongate”), Danish strække (“to stretch”), Swedish sträcka (“to stretch”), Dutch strak (“taut, tight”), Albanian shtriqem (“to stretch”). More at stark.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st??t?/
• Rhymes: -?t?

Verb

stretch (third-person singular simple present stretches, present participle stretching, simple past and past participle stretched or (obsolete) straught or (obsolete) straight)

1. (transitive) To lengthen by pulling.

2. (intransitive) To lengthen when pulled.
   • 1660, Robert Boyle, New Experiments Physico-Mechanical: Touching the Spring of the Air and their Effects

     The inner membrane […] because it would stretch and yield, remained unbroken.

3. (transitive) To pull tight.

4. (figuratively, transitive) To get more use than expected from a limited resource.

5. (figuratively, transitive) To make inaccurate by exaggeration.

6. (intransitive) To extend physically, especially from limit point to limit point.

7. (intransitive, transitive) To extend one’s limbs or another part of the body in order to improve the elasticity of one's muscles

8. (intransitive) To extend to a limit point

9. (transitive) To increase.
10. (obsolete, colloquial) To stretch the truth; to exaggerate.

11. (nautical) To sail by the wind under press of canvas.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Ham. Nav. Encyc to this entry?)

12. (slang, transitive, archaic) To execute by hanging.
13. To make great demands on the capacity or resources of something.

Translations

See also

• pandiculate

Noun

stretch (plural stretches)

1. An act of stretching.

2. The ability to lengthen when pulled.

3. A course of thought which diverts from straightforward logic, or requires extraordinary belief or exaggeration.

4. A segment of a journey or route.

5. A segment or length of material.

6. (Britain, slang, archaic) A walk.
   • Evelyn Underhill, quoted in 2010, Evelyn Underhill, ?Carol Poston, The Making of a Mystic: New and Selected Letters of Evelyn Underhill (page 81)

     In the afternoon I went for a stretch into the country, & about 4 it cleared up pretty well, so I hurried back & we got a cart & drove to Bassano, a little town about 8 miles off, that we wanted to see.

7. (baseball) A quick pitching delivery used when runners are on base where the pitcher slides his leg instead of lifting it.
8. (baseball) A long reach in the direction of the ball with a foot remaining on the base by a first baseman in order to catch the ball sooner.
9. (informal) Term of address for a tall person.
10. (horse racing) The homestretch, the final straight section of the track leading to the finish.
11. A length of time.

    • After the harvest there was a stretch of clear dry weather, and the animals toiled harder than ever […]

    1. (Ireland) Extended daylight hours, especially said of the evening in springtime when compared to the shorter winter days.

    2. (sports) The period of the season between the trade deadline and the beginning of the playoffs.
    3. (slang) A jail or prison term.

       Synonym: stint

       1. (slang) A jail or prison term of one year's duration.
    4. A single uninterrupted sitting; a turn.
12. A stretch limousine.

Translations

Derived terms

Descendants

• Esperanto: stre?i

Further reading

• stretch at OneLook Dictionary Search

References

• (a walk): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

Anagrams

• strecht

English

Alternative forms

• distaunce (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English distance, distaunce, destaunce, from Old French destance, from Latin distantia (“distance, remoteness, difference”), from dist?ns, present participle of dist? (“I stand apart, I am separate, distant, or different”), from di-, dis- (“apart”) + st? (“I stand”). Compare Dutch afstand (“distance”, literally “off-stand, off-stance”), German Abstand.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?d?s.t?ns/
• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /?d?s.t?ns/

Noun

distance (countable and uncountable, plural distances)

1. (countable) The amount of space between two points, usually geographical points, usually (but not necessarily) measured along a straight line.

   The distance to Petersborough is thirty miles.

   From Moscow, the distance is relatively short to Saint Petersburg, relatively long to Novosibirsk, but even greater to Vladivostok.
2. Length or interval of time.
   • 1718, Matthew Prior, Preface to a Collection of Poems

     ten years' distance between my writing the one and the other

   • 1795, John Playfair, Elements of Geometry

     the writings of Euclid at the distance of two thousand years

3. (countable, informal) The difference; the subjective measure between two quantities.

4. Remoteness of place; a remote place.
   • 1799, Thomas Campbell, The Pleasure of Hope

     'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view.

   • [He] waits at distance till he hears from Cato.

5. Remoteness in succession or relation.

6. A space marked out in the last part of a racecourse.
7. (uncountable, figuratively) The entire amount of progress to an objective.

8. (uncountable, figuratively) A withholding of intimacy; alienation; variance.
   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Seditions and Troubles

     Setting them [factions] at distance, or at least distrust amongst themselves.
9. The remoteness or reserve which respect requires; hence, respect; ceremoniousness.
   • 1665, John Dryden, The Indian Emperour

     I hope your modesty / Will know what distance to the crown is due.

   • 1706, Francis Atterbury, A Sermon Preached in the Guild-Hall Chapel, September 28 1706

     'Tis by respect and distance that authority is upheld.

10. The space measured back from the winning-post which a racehorse running in a heat must reach when the winner has covered the whole course, in order to run in the final heat.

Synonyms

• (remoteness): farness

Derived terms

Related terms

• distant

Translations

Verb

distance (third-person singular simple present distances, present participle distancing, simple past and past participle distanced)

1. (transitive) To move away (from) someone or something.

   He distanced himself from the comments made by some of his colleagues.

2. (transitive) To leave at a distance; to outpace, leave behind.
   • 1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska 2005, p. 71:

     Then the horse, with muscles strong as steel, distanced the sound.

Derived terms

• outdistance

Translations

Further reading

• distance in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• distance in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• distance at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• danciest

Danish

Etymology

From French distance.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /distan?s?/, [d?i?sd???s?]

Noun

distance c (singular definite distancen, plural indefinite distancer)

1. distance
2. detachment

Declension

Further reading

• “distance” in Den Danske Ordbog

Esperanto

Etymology

From distanco +? -e.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dis?tant?se/
• Hyphenation: dis?tan?ce
• Rhymes: -ant?se

Adverb

distance

1. To or at a great distance.

   rigardi pentra?on distance.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dis.t??s/
• Rhymes: -??s

Etymology 1

From Latin distantia.

Noun

distance f (plural distances)

1. distance

Derived terms

Related terms

• distant

Etymology 2

Verb

distance

1. inflection of distancer:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

• “distance” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Latvian

Noun

distance f (5 declension)

1. distance
2. interval
3. railway division

Declension