To fetch means to go get something and bring it back. When your mom asks you to fetch your jacket from upstairs, she wants you to go upstairs, get the jacket, and return with it. Dogs love to play fetch: you throw a ball, and the dog runs to get it and brings it back to you.

The word suggests a purposeful round trip. You don't just go somewhere, and you don't just bring something: you do both. A helpful child might fetch a glass of water for a grandparent. In older stories, servants were often told to fetch items for their employers.

In computing, when a program fetches data, it retrieves information from memory and brings it where it's needed, following the same back-and-forth pattern.

The word fetching can also mean attractive or charming, like a fetching smile, though this use is less common today.