stretch-out

See also: stretch out and stretchout

English

Alternative forms

• stretchout

Etymology

Deverbal from stretch out.

Noun

stretch-out (plural stretch-outs)

1. A practice of industrial operation, especially in the textile industry, by which workers are required to do additional work without a proportional increase in wages.

   Synonym: speedup

   Antonyms: go-slow, slowdown, work-to-rule

   • 1934 August 22, “Ways to Avert Textile Strike Come to Front”, in Chattanooga Daily Times, volume 65, number 249, Chattanooga, Tenn., page 2:

     The strike committee's statement today […] said the “stretchout system has become a scourge and the principal weapon used by the employers to beat the workers into subjection[.]” […] Of the stretch-out, the committee declared: / “We are sick and tired of listening to people tell us that there is nothing we can do about the stretch-out. […] ”

2. A stretch limousine.
   • 2004, Robert C. Allen, Creating Hawai'i Tourism: A Memoir, page 118:

     As time progressed, the Gray Line increased its limo fleet, converted the stretchouts into passenger vehicles (later widely emulated), and brought the first sightseeing buses to the Islands.

Further reading

• “stretch-out”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “stretch-out”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

Anagrams

• outstretch