Stretching

stretching
    n 1: act of expanding by lengthening or widening
    2: exercise designed to extend the limbs and muscles to their
       full extent [syn: {stretch}, {stretching}]
    

Stretch \Stretch\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Stretched}; p. pr. & vb.
   n. {Stretching}.] [OE. strecchen, AS. streccan; akin to D.
   strekken, G. strecken, OHG. strecchen, Sw. str[aum]cka, Dan.
   straekke; cf. AS. straeck, strec, strong, violent, G. strack
   straight; of uncertain origin, perhaps akin to E. strong. Cf.
   {Straight}.]
   1. To reach out; to extend; to put forth.
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            And stretch forth his neck long and small.
                                                  --Chaucer.
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            I in conquest stretched mine arm.     --Shak.
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   2. To draw out to the full length; to cause to extend in a
      straight line; as, to stretch a cord or rope.
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   3. To cause to extend in breadth; to spread; to expand; as,
      to stretch cloth; to stretch the wings.
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   4. To make tense; to tighten; to distend forcibly.
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            The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain.
                                                  --Shak.
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   5. To draw or pull out to greater length; to strain; as, to
      stretch a tendon or muscle.
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            Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve.  --Doddridge.
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   6. To exaggerate; to extend too far; as, to stretch the
      truth; to stretch one's credit.
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            They take up, one day, the most violent and
            stretched prerogative.                --Burke.
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Stretching \Stretch"ing\,
   a. & n. from {Stretch}, v.
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   {Stretching course} (Masonry), a course or series of
      stretchers. See {Stretcher}, 2. --Britton.
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102 Moby Thesaurus words for "stretching":
      aggrandizement, amplification, ballyhoo, big talk, bloat,
      bloatedness, bloating, blowing up, breaking point, burlesque,
      caricature, diastole, dilatation, dilation, distension, doziness,
      dropsy, drowsiness, edema, elongation, enhancement, enlargement,
      exaggerating, exaggeration, excess, exorbitance, expansion,
      extension, extravagance, extreme, extreme tension, flatulence,
      flatulency, flatus, gassiness, grandiloquence, heaviness,
      heightening, huckstering, hyperbole, hyperbolism, inflation,
      inordinacy, intumescence, languor, lengthening, lethargy,
      magnification, meteorism, oscitancy, oscitation, overdistension,
      overdrawing, overemphasis, overestimation, overexpansion,
      overextension, overkill, overstatement, overstrain, overstraining,
      overstretching, pandiculation, prodigality, production,
      profuseness, prolongation, protraction, puff, puffery, puffiness,
      puffing, puffing up, sensationalism, sleepiness, snapping point,
      somnolence, somnolency, strain, straining, stretch, stringing out,
      superlative, swell, swellage, swelling, swollenness, tall talk,
      tension, touting, travesty, tumefaction, tumescence, tumidity,
      tumidness, turgescence, turgidity, turgidness, tympanism, tympany,
      windiness, yawning