AbstractAfter Gentili and Struppa introduced in 2006 the theory of quaternionic slice regular functions, the theory has focused on functions on the so-called slice domains. The present work defines the class of speared domains, which is a rather broad extension of the class of slice domains, and proves that the theory is extremely interesting on speared domains. A Semi-global Extension Theorem and a Semi-global Representation Formula are proven for slice regular functions on speared domains: they generalize and strengthen some known local properties of slice regular functions on slice domains. A proper subclass of speared domains, called hinged domains, is defined and studied in detail. For slice regular functions on a hinged domain, a Global Extension Theorem and a Global Representation Formula are proven. The new results are based on a novel approach: one can associate to each slice regular function $$f:\Omega \rightarrow {\mathbb {H}}$$ f : Ω → H a family of holomorphic stem functions and a family of induced slice regular functions. As we tighten the hypotheses on $$\Omega $$ Ω (from an arbitrary quaternionic domain to a speared domain, to a hinged domain), these families represent f better and better and allow to prove increasingly stronger results.