What part of speech is stretching?

"Stretching" can be a few different parts of speech depending on how it's used in a sentence:

* Gerund: When it acts as a noun, like "Stretching is good for you." Here, "stretching" is the subject of the sentence.

* Present participle: When it modifies a noun, like "The stretching cat yawned." Here, "stretching" describes the cat.

* Verb: In its base form, it's a verb, like "I am stretching."

So, the specific part of speech depends on the context of the sentence!