a. colloq. [f. STRETCH v. + -Y.]
1. Having the quality of stretching; elastic.
1854. Poultry Chron., I. 503. The marvellous stretchy tightness of their feathers.
1902. Eliz. L. Banks, Newspaper Girl, 164. Would that we had some of the same stretchy kind [of rules] in America!
b. Liable to stretch unduly.
1885. H. M. Newhall, in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 282/2. A workman with a true eye can often counteract ‘stretchy stock,’ and cover up the deficiencies of the stitcher so that the upper [of the boot] will be a ‘snug fit’ to every part of the last.
2. Inclined to stretch oneself or one’s limbs.
1872. ‘Mark Twain,’ Roughing It, xxvii. (1882), 151. In the night the pup would get stretchy and brace his feet against the old man’s back.
