astretch

From a- +‎ stretch.

astretch (not comparable)

1. Stretched out, extended.
   • 1854, John Stanyan Bigg, Night and the Soul‎, London: Groombridge, Scene 5, p. 69:

     A thing half dead, with weary arms astretch / For anything to cling to

   • 1897, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Striped Chest”, in The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport‎, London: Smith, Elder, published 1905, page 204:

     My second mate was standing […] with his short, thick legs astretch, for the gale had left a considerable swell behind it,

   • 1912, Saki (H. H. Munro), “The Music on the Hill” in The Chronicles of Clovis, London: John Lane, p. 153,

     Astretch in a pool of mud was an enormous sow,

   • 1987, Edith L. B. Turner, “The Fish Eagle”, in The Spirit and the Drum‎, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, page 97:

     This time I heard something new in the beat of the drums, a trip-hammer knock that sent my heart racing, a stutter that made me choke and grin, that set my heels tapping, my toes astretch.

2. Straining to perceive, alert (of sensory organs or mental faculties).
   • 1833, Hamlet Wood, The Negro: An Historical Poem describing the unchristian and wicked principle and practices of slavery, Burslem, UK: for the author, p. 41,

     with attentive gaze,

     As winds dispelled the dark’ning haze,

     My eyes astretch—and all my mind afloat,

     To learn what sort of beings filled the boat;

   • 1897, Louis Robinson, Wild Traits in Tame Animals‎, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, Introduction, pp. 19-20:

     At the same moment every faculty is keenly astretch for further information which may aid in the conclusion he must come to before he stirs hand or foot.

   • 1958, Mary Stewart, chapter 9, in Nine Coaches Waiting‎, New York: Fawcett Crest, published 1970, page 127:

     And when, very late, I heard a car coming up the zigzag I jumped to my feet, nerves instantly astretch,

   • 1978, Nicolas Freeling, chapter 15, in The Night Lords,‎, New York: Pantheon, page 63:

     Undoubtedly the old bag had been hovering just inside her own doorway, ears astretch to catch his fairy footstep.

• chatters, ratchets