Emily Dickinson Lexicon

REACH, n.

1. In a general sense, extension; a stretching; extent.
2. The power of extending to, or of taking by the hand, or by any instrument managed by the hand. The book is not within my reach. The bottom of the sea is not within the reach of a line or cable.
3. Power of attainment or management, or the limit of power, physical or moral. He used all the means within his reach. The causes of phenomena are often beyond the reach of human intellect. Be sure yourself and your own reach to know. – Pope.
4. Effort of the mind in contrivance or research; contrivance; scheme. … Drawn by others who had deeper reaches than themselves to matters which they least intended. – Hayward.
5. A fetch; an artifice to obtain an advantage. The Duke of Parma had particular reaches and ends of his own underhand, to cross the design. – Bacon.
6. Tendency to distant consequences. Strain not my speech / To grosser issues, nor to larger reach / Than to suspicion. – Shak.
7. Extent. And on the left hand, hell / With long reach interpos'd. – Milton.
8. Among seamen, the distance between two points on the banks of a river, in which the current flows in a straight course. – Mar. Dict.
9. An effort to vomit.