# span
## English
### Etymology 1

From Middle English spanne, from Old English spann, from Proto-Germanic *spannō (“span, handbreadth”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pend- (“to stretch”).
Cognate with Dutch span, spanne, German Spanne. The sense “pair of horses” is probably from Old English ġespan, ġespann (“a joining; a fastening together; clasp; yoke”), from Proto-West Germanic [Term?]. Cognate with Dutch gespan, German Gespann.

#### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /spæn/
* (General Australian) IPA: /spæːn/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -æn

#### Noun

span (plural spans)
* The full width of an open hand from the end of the thumb to the end of the little finger used as an informal unit of length.
* Any of various traditional units of length approximating this distance, especially the English handspan of 9 inches forming ⅛ fathom and equivalent to 22.86 cm.
* (by extension) A small space or a brief portion of time.
    He has a short attention span and gets bored within minutes.
** 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:"Why in ten thousand years scarce will the rain and storms lessen a mountain top by a span in thickness?"
** 1738, [Alexander Pope], “Stanza VI”, in The Universal Prayer. […], London [actually Edinburgh]: […] [Thomas Ruddiman] for R[obert] Dodsley, […], →OCLC, page 5:Yet not to Earth's contracted Span, Thy Goodneſs let me bound; […]
** 1699, George Farquhar, The Constant Couple:Life's but a span; I'll every inch enjoy.
** 2007, John Zerzan, Silence:The unsilent present is a time of evaporating attention spans,
* A portion of something by length; a subsequence.
** 2004, Robert Harris, Robert Warner, The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFace, page 759:For example, in OpenOffice.org or Microsoft Word, each span of text can have a style that defines key characteristics about the text: • What font it uses • Whether it's normal, bolded, italicized, […]
* (architecture, construction) The spread or extent of an arch or between its abutments, or of a beam, girder, truss, roof, bridge, or the like, between supports.
** 1961 January, “Talking of Trains: The Severn Bridge disaster”, in Trains Illustrated, page 5:The force of the explosion demolished one pair of piers and two spans of the bridge crashed down into the river on top of the barges.
* (architecture, construction) The length of a cable, wire, rope, chain between two consecutive supports.
* (nautical) A rope having its ends made fast so that a purchase can be hooked to the bight; also, a rope made fast in the center so that both ends can be used.
* (US, Canada) A pair of horses or other animals driven together; usually, such a pair of horses when similar in color, form, and action.
* (mathematics) The space of all linear combinations of vectors within a set.
* (computing) The time required to execute a parallel algorithm on an infinite number of processors, i.e. the shortest distance across a directed acyclic graph representing the computation steps.
** 2017, Ananya Kumar, Guy E. Blelloch, Robert Harper, “Parallel Functional Arrays”, in ACM SIGPLAN Notices, →DOI:We use the term span (also called depth, or dependence depth) to refer to the number of parallel steps assuming an unbounded number of processors.
* wingspan of a plane or bird

##### Derived terms

* arm span
* attention span
* clearspan
* cospan
* drawspan
* endspan
* eyespan
* forspan
* gerospan
* handspan
* healthspan
* inspan
* knot span
* legspan
* life span
* lifespan
* linear span
* linkspan
* long-span
* mainspan
* makespan
* memory span
* midspan
* outspan
* overspan
* palmspan
* span block
* span counter
* span iron
* spanless
* spannable
* spanned → unspanned
* spanner
* spanning → multi-, overspanning
* span of control
* span roof
* span shackle
* spanwise
* spanworm
* spick-and-span (spick and span)
* subspan
* supraspan
* tetraspan
* timespan
* time-span reduction
* widespan
* wingspan

##### Related terms

* spang (Scotland)

##### Translations
#### See also

* chord

#### References

* ↑ “span”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.

### Etymology 2

From Middle English spannen, from Old English spannan, from Proto-Germanic *spannaną (“to stretch, span”). Cognate with German spannen, Dutch spannen.

#### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /spæn/
* (General Australian) IPA: /spæːn/
* Rhymes: -æn

#### Verb

span (third-person singular simple present spans, present participle spanning, simple past and past participle spanned)
* (transitive) To extend through the distance between or across.
    The suspension bridge spanned the canyon.
** 1855–1858, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, →OCLC:The rivers were spanned by arches of solid masonry.
** 2023 March 8, “Network News: Grant for repairs at Gaunless Bridge”, in RAIL, number 978, page 9:Completed in 1823, Gaunless Bridge was designed by George Stephenson to span the River Gaunless in West Auckland, forming part of a line serving Witton Park Colliery.
* (transitive) To extend through (a time period).
    The parking lot spans three acres.
    The novel spans three centuries.
* (transitive) To measure by the span of the hand with the fingers extended, or with the fingers encompassing the object.
    to span a space or distance; to span a cylinder
** 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 48:13, column 2:Mine hand alſo hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath ſpanned the heauens: when I call vnto them, they ſtand vp together.
* (mathematics) To generate an entire space by means of linear combinations.
* (intransitive, US, dated) To be matched, as horses.
* (transitive) To fetter, as a horse; to hobble.
** 1972, Mountain, numbers 20-24, page 22:We spanned the dogs high up a corrie to the south of the ridge […]

##### Translations
### Etymology 3

From Middle English span, from Old English spann, from Proto-Germanic *spann, first and third person singular preterit indicative of Proto-Germanic *spinnaną (“to spin”).

#### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation, General Australian, General American) IPA: /spæn/
* Rhymes: -æn

#### Verb

span
* (dated, now uncommon) simple past of spin
** 1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], Act I:But when Adam delued, and Eue ſpan, VVho was then a Gentleman?
** 1891, H[enry] Rider Haggard, “How Hall of Lithdale Took Tidings to Iceland”, in Eric Brighteyes, 2nd edition, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 204:So they went in to where Gudruda sat spinning in the hall, singing as she span.
** 2014 September 29, Reuters, “Five spectators in critical condition following stunt truck accident”, in Irish Independent‎, archived from the original on 11 March 2016:Five spectators remained in critical condition on Monday, a day after they were injured when a giant pick-up truck span out of control during a stunt show in a Dutch town, killing three people, local officials said.

##### Alternative forms

* spun (more common)

##### Derived terms

* wheelspan (verb)

#### See also

* span-new (probably etymologically unrelated)

### Anagrams

* NSPA, Snap, ANPs, NPAS, SNAP, naps, PANs, PNAs, pans, snap, APNS, PNAS, Pans, NPAs

## Dutch
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /spɑn/
* Audio:(file)
* Hyphenation: span
* Rhymes: -ɑn

### Etymology 1

From older gespan.

#### Noun

span n (plural spannen, diminutive spannetje n)
* a span, a team (pair or larger team of draught animals) [from 17th c.]
* a cart or instrument with a team of draught animals [from 18th c.]
* a romantic pair, couple [from 19th c.]

##### Derived terms

* driespan
* tweespan
* vierspan
* zesspan

##### Descendants

* Afrikaans: span

### Etymology 2

From spannen.

#### Noun

span m or f (plural spannen, diminutive spannetje n)
* (dated) span (distance between extended thumb and little finger)
* (dated) span (interval of space or time)

##### Alternative forms

* spanne

##### Derived terms

* spanwijdte

### Etymology 3

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

#### Verb

span
* inflection of spannen:
** first-person singular present indicative
** (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
** imperative

### Anagrams

* snap

## Icelandic
### Noun

span n (genitive singular spans, no plural)
* hurry, haste
* (physics) induction

#### Declension
### Further reading

* “span” in the Dictionary of Modern Icelandic (in Icelandic) and ISLEX (in the Nordic languages)

## Middle English
### Noun

span
* Alternative form of spanne

## Sranan Tongo
### Etymology

From Dutch spannen.

### Adjective

span
* exciting
* angry, displeased
* busy, crowded
* tight, taut
* tense, stressed
* loaded, crammed
* (of a projectile weapon) loaded, armed

### Noun

span
* tension
* excitement

### Verb

span
* to stretch out
* to tighten
* to crowd
* to suffer stress, to be agitated
* to be exciting
** 1981, Thea Doelwijt, Prisiri stari. De pretster. Wan komedi-pré gi pikin. Een theaterspel voor kinderen [The star of joy. A theatre play for children]‎, Paramaribo: Eldoradoboek, →ISBN, page 114:Ini 1974 te kon miti a srefidensi foe Sranan (1975), a Doe-Theater pré: Libi Span ini na ati joe Sranan - wan totaal-theater-pré, pe singi, pokoe, dansi nanga pré moksi kon na wan, èn pe den someni koeltoeroe foe Sranan ben e begi foe a krakti foe Mama Sranan.[Ini 1974 te kon miti a srefidensi fu Sranan (1975), a Doe-Theater prei: Libi Span ini na ati fu Sranan - wan totaal-theater-prei, pe singi, poku, dansi nanga prei moksi kon na wan, èn pe den someni kulturu fu Sranan ben e begi fu a krakti fu Mama Sranan.]In 1974 until the independence of Suriname (1975), the Doe-Theater performed: Life's Exciting in the Heart of Suriname - a total-theatre play where song, music, dance and theatre mixed together, and where Suriname's many cultures invoked the strength of Mother Suriname.
* (of a projectile weapon) to load, to arm

#### Descendants

* → Dutch: no spang

## Swedish
### Etymology

Deverbal of spana.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /spɑːn/
* Rhymes: -ɑːn

### Noun

span n
* (colloquial) an act of spying (something)
    Jag hade fått span på en dam som kan få en att bli monogamI had spied a lady that can make one monogamous
* (colloquial) stakeout

### References

* span in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)

## West Frisian
### Etymology

From Low German or Dutch spannen (“to yoke, stretch”).

### Noun

span n (plural spannen, diminutive spantsje)
* span, team (pair of draught animals in a team)
* pair, couple

#### Further reading

* “span (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011