English
fetch and carry
From fetch + and + carry, originally a reference to a trained dog fetching and conveying an object back to its master: see, for example, William Shakespeare’s play The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act III, scene i (spelling modernized): “She hath more qualities than a water-spaniel, […] She can fetch and carry: why a horse can do no more; nay, a horse cannot fetch, but only carry, therefore is she better than a jade.”
A compound of fetch + and + carry
Old English feċċan ‘to fetch, bring’
Middle English fecchen ‘to get and bring back, fetch’
English fetch
Proto-Indo-European *h₂ent- ‘face’
…
Proto-Germanic *andi ‘in addition’
Proto-West Germanic *andi
Old English and
Middle English and ‘and’
English and
Latin carrus ‘four-wheeled baggage wagon’
Anglo-Norman carier
Middle English carien ‘to transport’
English carry
The story
From fetch + and + carry, originally a reference to a trained dog fetching and conveying an object back to its master: see, for example, William Shakespeare’s play The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act III, scene i (spelling modernized): “She hath more qualities than a water-spaniel, […] She can fetch and carry: why a horse can do no more; nay, a horse cannot fetch, but only carry, therefore is she better than a jade.”
Today it means
verb To serve obsequiously.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / fetch and carry