reach

verb

1. (intransitive)To extend, stretch, or thrust out (for example a limb or object held in the hand).

   “He reached for a weapon that was on the table.”

   “He reached for his shoe with his legs.”

2. (transitive)To give to someone by stretching out a limb, especially the hand; to give with the hand; to pass to another person; to hand over.

   “to reach someone a book”

   “When Svend Fælling had promised to do so, saying that he thought himself strong and active enough for the encounter, the Troll reached him a heavy iron bar, and bade him show his strength on that.”

3. (intransitive)To stretch out the hand.
4. (transitive)To attain or obtain by stretching forth the hand; to extend some part of the body, or something held, so as to touch, strike, grasp, etc.

   “to reach an object with the hand, or with a spear”

   ““I can't quite reach the pepper. Could you pass it to me?””

   “The gun was stored in a small box on a high closet shelf, but the boy managed to reach it by climbing on other boxes.”

5. (transitive)To strike or touch.

   “His bullet reached its intended target.”

6. (broadly, transitive)To extend an action, effort, or influence to; to penetrate to; to pierce, or cut.

   “A few words, lovingly, encouragingly spoken failed to reach her heart.”

   “Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.”

7. (transitive)To extend to; to stretch out as far as; to touch by virtue of extent.

   “his hand reaches the river”

   “When the forest reaches the river, you will be able to rest.”

   “Thy desire […] leads to no excess / That reaches blame.”

   “Patent filings for neural networks grew at a rate of 46 percent from 2013 to 2016, reaching 6,506, the study found.”

8. (transitive)To arrive at (a place) by effort of any kind.

   “After three years, he reached the position of manager.”

   “The climbers reached the top of the mountain after a gruelling ten-day hike.”

   “I am very Senſible, the beſt accounts of the Appearances of Nature (in any ſingle Inſtance hovv minute or ſimple ſoever) Humane Penetration can reach, comes infinitely ſhort of its reality, and internal Conſtitution; for vvho can ſearch out the Almighty, or his vvorks to Perfection.”

   “But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud,[…]. By the time we reached the house we were thanking our stars she had come. Mrs. Cooke came out from under the port-cochere to welcome her.”

   “On the trip out our car was full of railway workers, going out to work on the Lanchow-Sinkiang Railway which had already reached Yumen, China’s biggest oil field, and in 1960 will connect with the Soviet Union’s Turkestan-Siberia Railway; or to the Lanchow-Yinchuan section, which cuts through the Great Wall to reach Yinchuan, a major wool, hide and skin trading center in the Northwest.”

9. (figuratively, transitive)To make contact with.

   “I tried to reach you all day.”

10. (figuratively, transitive)To connect with (someone) on an emotional level, making them receptive of (one); to get through to (someone).

    “What will it take for me to reach him?”

    “Whether by design or driven by the force of circumstances, they have always directed their main effort toward gaining the support of this "elite," while the more conservative groups have acted, as regularly but unsuccessfully, on a more naive view of mass democracy and have usually vainly tried directly to reach and to persuade the individual voter.”

11. (India, Singapore, intransitive)To arrive at a particular destination.

    “The particulars that reach from Eastern Bengal require corroboration.”

    “I reached at the right time.”

    “It should be noted that Hare Krishna Konar, an arch leftist, could not vote on the Bhupesh Gupta—S.K. Achaiya issue as he reached late.”

    “In the event of your statement reaching later than 6th March, there will be chances of your requirement left and leading to difficulty of having to explain your excess or saving being as the case may be.”

    “I suggest taking an earlier bus (say 6:00 p.m.), reaching at around midnight, then taking a taxi (might even be able to catch the last MRT) to Changi.”

12. (transitive)To continue living until or up to (a certain age).

    “You can only access the inheritance money when you reach the age of 25.”

13. (obsolete)To understand; to comprehend.

    “Do what, sir? I reach you not.”

14. To strain after something; to make (sometimes futile or pretentious) efforts.

    “Reach for your dreams.”

    “Reach for the stars!”

    “Repetitious comments are other examples of introjects that we take on as if they were truths. These include: You're lazy; you're selfish; you'll never amount to anything; you have big dreams; don't you think you're reaching a bit; try something more attainable; you were never good in math; you're not quick on your feet; you're oblivious to the world around you.”

15. (intransitive)To extend in dimension, time etc.; to stretch out continuously (past, beyond, above, from etc. something).

    “The Thembu tribe reaches back for twenty generations to King Zwide.”

16. To sail on the wind, as from one point of tacking to another, or with the wind nearly abeam.
17. (Multicultural-London-English, slang)To arrive at a particular destination, especially to join someone; to meet up.

    “What time you reaching tomorrow?”

    “If you're calling out at your homies to come over and hang out, you just simply say "reach."”

18. (alt-of, alternative, dialectal, obsolete)Alternative form of retch.

noun

1. The act of stretching or extending; extension.
2. The ability to reach or touch with the person, a limb, or something held or thrown.

   “The fruit is beyond my reach.”

   “to be within reach of cannon shot”

   “[…] and we have learned not to fire at any of the dinosaurs unless we can keep out of their reach for at least two minutes after hitting them in the brain or spine, or five minutes after puncturing their hearts—it takes them so long to die.”

   “You like to hear about gold. A king filled his prison room As full as the room could hold To the top of his reach on the wall With every known shape of the stuff.”

3. The power of stretching out or extending action, influence, or the like; power of attainment or management; extent of force or capacity.

   “Drawn by others who had deeper reaches than themselves to matters which they least intended.”

   “Be sure yourself and your own reach to know.”

4. Extent; stretch; expanse; hence, application; influence; result; scope.

   “And on the left hand, hell, / With long reach, interposed.”

   “I am to pray you not to strain my speech / To grosser issues, nor to larger reach / Than to suspicion.”

   “While points measure the number of times the average person in a group sees an ad, reach measures the percentage of people in a group that see an ad at least once. Increasing the reach of an ad becomes increasingly expensive as you go along (for the mathematically inclined, it is an exponential function).”

5. (informal)An exaggeration; an extension beyond evidence or normal; a stretch.

   “To call George eloquent is certainly a reach.”

6. The distance a boxer's arm can extend to land a blow.
7. Any point of sail in which the wind comes from the side of a vessel, excluding close-hauled.
8. The distance traversed between tacks.
9. A stretch of a watercourse which can be sailed in one reach (in the previous sense). An extended portion of water; a stretch; a straightish portion of a stream, river, or arm of the sea extending up into the land, as from one turn to another. By extension, the adjacent land.

   “the gulfe Iasius, and all the coast thereof is very full of creekes and reaches.”

   “The river's wooded reach.”

   “The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return.”

   “All three parallel valleys of the Llynvi, Garw and Ogmore are much the same in physical character: the lower reaches are wooded and not unattractive, but as the railway climbs on ever-steepening grades, the hills on either hand grow barer and closer together, while in all respects the scene becomes more sombre, with the terraced, slate-roofed colliery towns and the road, railway and river all struggling for space in the narrowing defiles.”

10. A level stretch of a watercourse, as between rapids in a river or locks in a canal. (examples?)
11. An extended portion or area of land or water.

    “Lower down, in a little reach of the lagoon there grew a clump of casuarinas, those timid isolates that withdraw from other trees, selecting their own privacy, which is for ever whispering secrets up in their feathery fronds, set in motion by the slightest breeze.”

    “2002, Russell Allen, "Incantations of the Apprentice", on Symphony X, The Odyssey. Through eerie reach of ancient woods / Where lumbering mists arise / I journey for nines moons of the year / To where a land of legend lies”

12. (obsolete)An article to obtain an advantage.

    “The Duke of Parma had particular reaches and ends of his own, under hand, to cross the design.”

13. The pole or rod connecting the rear axle with the forward bolster of a wagon.

    “They leaped ahead just as Ruth came to the side of the long reach that connected the small pair of front wheels with the huge wheels in the rear.”

14. (alt-of, alternative, dialectal, obsolete)Alternative form of retch.
15. (Japanese, alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of riichi.

name

1. (abbreviation, acronym, alt-of)Acronym of Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals.

   “A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which is responsible for the UK’s registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals (UK Reach), said: “UK Reach allows the UK to make its own decisions on the regulation of chemicals that are based on the best available scientific evidence, ensuring that chemicals remain safely used and managed. «UK to investigate tattoo ink health risks after EU ban » The Guardian, 2021”

2. A village and civil parish in East Cambridgeshire district, Cambridgeshire, England (OS grid ref TL5666).
3. A former township in the Regional Municipality of Durham, Ontario, Canada, now part of the township of Scugog.