# space
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English space, from Anglo-Norman space, variant of espace, espas et al., and spaze, variant of espace, from Latin spatium, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peh₂- (“to stretch, to pull”).

### Pronunciation

* enPR: spās, IPA: /speɪs/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Hyphenation: space
* Rhymes: -eɪs

### Noun

space (countable and uncountable, plural spaces)
* (heading) Unlimited or generalized extent, physical or otherwise.
** Distance between things. [from 14thc.]
    Synonyms: break, gap; see also Thesaurus:interspace
*** c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii], page 347, column 2:But neere him, thy Angell / Becomes a feare: as being o're-powr'd, therefore / Make ſpace enough betweene you.
*** 2001 November 3, Sam Wollaston, “Russian around”, in The Guardian‎:Which means that for every car there was 10 years ago, there are now 40. Which means - and this is my own, not totally scientific, calculation - that the space between cars on the roads in 1991 was roughly 39 car lengths, because today there is no space at all.
** Physical extent across two or three dimensions (sometimes for or to do something). [from 14thc.]
    Synonyms: area, volume
*** c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii], page 364, column 1:O God, I could be bounded in a nutſhell, and / count my ſelfe a King of infinite ſpace; were it not that / I haue bad dreames.
*** 2007 May 12, Dominic Bradbury, “Lost and found - an artist's voyage from city to country”, in The Guardian‎:They also wanted a larger garden and more space for home working.
** Physical extent in all directions, seen as an attribute of the universe (now usually considered as a part of space-time), or a mathematical model of this. [from 17thc.]
*** 1656, Thomas Hobbes, Elements of Philosophy, section II:Space is the Phantasme of a Thing existing without the Mind simply.
*** 1880 August, Popular Science:These are not questions which can be decided by reference to our space intuitions, for our intuitions are confined to Euclidean space, and even there are insufficient, approximative.
*** 2007 April 15, Anushka Asthana, David Smith, The Observer:The early results from Gravity Probe B, one of Nasa's most complicated satellites, confirmed yesterday 'to a precision of better than 1 per cent' the assertion Einstein made 90 years ago - that an object such as the Earth does indeed distort the fabric of space and time.
** The near-vacuum in which planets, stars and other celestial objects are situated; the universe beyond the earth's atmosphere. [from 17thc.]
    Synonym: outer space
    the first man in space
*** 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 86–90:How firſt began this Heav'n which we behold / Diſtant ſo high, with moving Fires adornd / Innumerable, and this which yeelds or fills / All ſpace, the ambient Aire wide interfus'd / Imbracing round this florid Earth, […]
*** 1900 December – 1901 August, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, The First Men in the Moon, London: George Newnes, […], published 1901, →OCLC:After all, to go into outer space is not so much worse, if at all, than a polar expedition.
*** 2010 August 9, Stephen Hawking, quotee, “Stephen Hawking: mankind must colonise space or die out”, in The Guardian‎:The human race must colonise space within the next two centuries or it will become extinct, Stephen Hawking warned today.
** The physical and psychological area one needs within which to live or operate; personal freedom. [from 20thc.]
*** 1996, Linda Brodkey, Writing Permitted in Designated Areas Only:Around the time of my parents' divorce, I learned that reading could also give me space.
*** 2008, Jimmy Treigle, Walking on Water:"I care about you Billy, whether you believe it or not; but right now I need my space."
* (heading) Of time.
** (now rare, archaic) Free time; leisure, opportunity. [from 14thc.]
    Synonyms: leisure time, spare time
*** c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i], page 245, column 2:Come on, thou are granted ſpace.
*** 1793, Henry Boyd, “The Royal Message”, in Poems‎, Dublin: Graisberry and Campbell, page 408:In two days hence / The Judge of life and death aſcends his ſeat. / —This will afford him ſpace to reach the camp […].
** A specific (specified) period of time. [from 14thc.]
    Synonyms: duration, span; see also Thesaurus:period
*** 1893, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, Giles Corey:I pray you, sirs, to take some cheers the while I go for a moment's space to my poor afflicted child.
*** 2007 October 20, Andy Bull, “We wozn't robbed!”, in The Guardian‎:The match was lost, though, in the space of just twenty minutes or so.
*** 2011 September 29, Jon Smith, “Tottenham 3-1 Shamrock Rovers”, in BBC Sport:But their lead lasted just 10 minutes before Roman Pavlyuchenko and Jermain Defoe both headed home in the space of two minutes to wrestle back control.
** An undefined period of time (without qualifier, especially a short period); a while. [from 15thc.]
    Synonyms: spell, while; see also Thesaurus:uncertain period
*** 1923 May 17, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “(please specify the page)”, in The Inimitable Jeeves, Harmondsworth, Middlesex [London]: Penguin Books, published 1979, →ISBN:Even Comrade Butt cast off his gloom for a space and immersed his whole being in scrambled eggs.
* (heading) A bounded or specific extent, physical or otherwise.
** A (chiefly empty) area or volume with set limits or boundaries. [from 14thc.]
*** 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, […]. Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been disposed to accord either.
*** 2000, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender:The street door was open, and we entered a narrow space with washing facilities, curtained off from the courtyard.
*** 2012 July 16, Charlotte Higgins, “Tate Modern unlocks Tanks – and introduces live art into mainstream”, in The Guardian‎:Converted from vast chambers beneath the old Bankside Power Station which once held a million gallons of oil, the new public areas consist of two large circular spaces for performances and film installations, plus a warren of smaller rooms.
** (music) A position on the staff or stave bounded by lines. [from 15thc.]
*** 1849, Guillaume Louis Bocquillon-Wilhem, translated by John Pyke Hullah, Wilhelm's Method of Teaching Singing:The note next above Sol is La; La, therefore, stands in the 2nd space; Si, on the 3rd line, &c.
*** 1990, Sammy Nzioki, Music Time:The lines and spaces of the staff are named according to the first seven letters of the alphabet, that is, A B C D E F G.
** A gap in text between words, lines etc., or a digital character used to create such a gap. [from 16thc.]
    Synonyms: blank, gap, (graphic design) whitespace
    Hypernym: punctuation mark
*** 1992, Sam H Ham, Environmental Interpretation:According to experts, a single line of text should rarely exceed about 50 characters (including letters and all the spaces between words).
*** 2005, Dr BR Kishore, Dynamic Business Letter Writing:It should be typed a space below the salutation : Dear Sir, Subject : Replacement of defective items.
** (letterpress typography) A piece of metal type used to separate words, cast lower than other type so as not to take ink, especially one that is narrower than one en (compare quad). [from 17thc.]
    Synonyms: quad, quadrat
*** 1683, Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the art of Printing.‎, volume 2, pages 240–1:If it be only a Single Letter or two that drops, he thruſts the end of his Bodkin between every Letter of that Word, till he comes to a Space: and then perhaps by forcing thoſe Letters closer, he may have room to put in another Space or a Thin Space; which if he cannot do, and he finds the Space ſtand Looſe in the Form; he with the Point of his Bodkin picks the Space up and bows it a little; which bowing makes the Letters on each ſide of the Space keep their parallel diſtance; for by its Spring it thruſts the Letters that were cloſed with the end of the Bodkin to their adjunct Letters, that needed no cloſing.
*** 1979, Marshall Lee, Bookmaking, page 110:Horizontal spacing is further divided into multiples and fractions of the em. The multiples are called quads. The fractions are called spaces.
*** 2005, Phil Baines, Andrew Haslam, Type & Typography, 2nd edition, page 91:Other larger spaces – known as quads – were used to space out lines.
** A gap; an empty place. [from 17thc.]
*** 2004, Harry M Benshoff, editor, Queer Cinéma:Mainstream Hollywood would not cater to the taste for sexual sensation, which left a space for B-movies, including noir.
*** 2009, Barbara L. Lev, From Pink to Green:A horizontal scar filled the space on her chest where her right breast used to be.
** (geometry) A set of points, each of which is uniquely specified by a number (the dimensionality) of coordinates.
** (countable, mathematics) A generalized construct or set whose members have some property in common; typically there will be a geometric metaphor allowing these members to be viewed as "points". Often used with a restricting modifier describing the members (e.g. vector space), or indicating the inventor of the construct (e.g. Hilbert space). [from 20thc.]
    Functional analysis is best approached through a sound knowledge of Hilbert space theory.
** (countable, figuratively) A field, area, or sphere of activity or endeavour.
    innovation in the browser space
*** 2019, Ryan Derousseau, The Everything Guide to Investing in Cryptocurrency […] , Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 269:CNBC has shown a greater commitment to the crypto space than most other mainstream outlets, providing daily updates on bitcoin or other very large cryptocurrencies.
*** 2020, Alexia Moncrieff, Expertise, Authority and Control, Cambridge University Press, page 187:[T]hey became responsible for managing aspects of civilian labour in the medical space, and their roles were contrasted with those of the female physiotherapists in the hospital.
** Anything analogous to a physical space in which one can interact, such as an online chat room.
*** 2007, Jacob van Kokswijk, Digital Ego: Social and Legal Aspects of Virtual Identity, page 88:Communication in Internet chat spaces allows participants to communicate so freely in the relative safety of anonymity that they forget their privacy.

#### Hyponyms

* 2-em space
* 3-em space
* address space
* aerospace
* affine space
* air space
* airspace
* backspace
* Baire space
* Banach space
* base space
* blue space
* breathing space
* bunkspace
* chemical space
* column space
* compact space
* conjugate space
* connected space
* crawlspace
* crawl space
* cyberspace
* danger space
* dark space
* dead-air space
* dead space
* deep space
* drift space
* dual space
* Einstein space
* em space
* en space
* Euclidean space
* exceptional space
* exotic four-space
* fishing space
* flat space
* floor space
* Foch space
* Fourier space
* Fréchet space
* free space
* function space
* G space
* hair space
* half space
* Hausdorff space
* headspace
* Hilbert space
* homeomorphic space
* homogeneous space
* hydrospace
* hyperbolic space
* hyperspace
* image space
* inertial space
* inner product space
* interaction space
* interplanetary space
* interstellar space
* intervillous space
* isometric space
* joint space
* justifying space
* lacunary space
* Lindelöf space
* living space
* loading space
* locally ringed space
* mathematical space
* measurable space
* metacompact space
* metric space
* metrizable space
* Minkowski space
* Moore space
* mutton space
* namespace
* n-dimensional space
* normal space
* normed linear space
* n space
* null space
* NUT space
* object space
* open half space
* orbit space
* orthogonal space
* outer space
* paracompact space
* Pauli spin space
* Peano space
* perfectly separable space
* perivitelline space
* phase space
* Polish space
* popliteal space
* pore space
* probability space
* problem space
* projective space
* pseudospace
* quotient space
* reflexive Banach space
* regular space
* regular topological space
* Riemann space
* ringed space
* sample space
* separable space
* sequentially compact space
* shrinking space
* spin space
* state space
* strictly convex space
* subarachnoid space
* subspace
* symmetric space
* T0 space
* T1 space
* T3 space
* T4 space
* tangent space
* tensor space
* thick space
* thin space
* topological space
* total space
* triangulable space
* Tychonoff space
* uniform space
* unitary space
* vector space
* wave-vector space
* weakly complete space
* whitespace
* white space
* workspace

#### Derived terms

* 3-to-the-em space
* 5-em space
* 5-to-the-em space
* absolute space
* absolute space-time
* action space
* aerospace
* airspace
* alien space bats
* anchor space
* anti-de Sitter space
* anti-space
* baby space
* backspace
* Bloch space
* breathing-space
* bunkspace
* Calabi-Yau space
* Cartesian space
* Cauchy space
* Chebyshev space
* classifying space
* clearance space
* color space
* confined space
* counter-space
* covering space
* crash space
* crawlspace
* Crookes space
* cyberspace
* deep-space
* de Sitter space
* Destot's space
* double space
* double-space
* Eilenberg-MacLane space
* empty space
* Euclidian space
* factor space
* figure space
* floor-space
* floorspace
* Fock space
* four-space
* Fully Automated Luxury Queer Space Communism
* Haar space
* handicapped space
* hard space
* headspace
* head space
* head-space
* hold space
* H-space
* hydrospace
* hyperspace
* identification space
* ideographic space
* information space
* intercostal space
* interspace
* in the space of
* into space
* is this a safe space
* kernel space
* kick space
* Kolmogorov space
* latent space
* liminal space
* linear space
* little space
* Lp space
* measure space
* meat space
* meat-space
* multispace
* namespace
* near space
* near-space
* negative space
* no-break space
* non-breaking space
* non-space
* n-space
* open space
* other-space
* paraglottic space
* parallel dead space
* parking space
* personal space
* Poincaré space
* prehilbert space
* pre-Hilbert space
* projective Hilbert space
* pseudospace
* public space
* punctuation space
* pupillary space
* quadrilateral space syndrome
* row space
* safe space
* search space
* Seifert fibered space
* Seifert fiber space
* Seifert fibred space
* Seifert fibre space
* shared space
* Sierpinski space
* single-space
* slack space
* sober space
* Sobolev space
* space adaptation syndrome
* Space Age
* space age
* space agency
* space alien
* space attenuation
* space average
* space bar
* space-based
* space bear
* space biology
* space blanket
* spaceborne
* space-borne
* space bridge
* space buns
* space cadet
* space-cadet keyboard
* space cake
* space capsule
* space case
* space centrode
* space charge
* space cloth
* space communication
* space complexity
* space cone
* space coordinate
* spacecraft
* space current
* space curve
* space debris
* space defence
* space defense
* space disco
* space docking
* space dog
* space dot
* space dust
* space dyeing
* space elevator
* space environment
* space equivalent zone
* space exploration
* space factor
* space-faring
* spacefaring
* space-filling
* space-filling curve
* space-filling model
* space fixed reference
* space flight
* space force
* space frame
* spaceful
* space group
* space guidance
* space gun
* space-happy
* space heater
* space heating
* space helmet
* space herpes
* space hopper
* space ice cream
* space invader
* space-invader
* space junk
* space lattice
* space law
* spaceless
* space-like
* spacelike
* space line
* space-lore
* spacely
* spaceman
* space marine
* space medicine
* space mission
* space motion
* space nation
* space navigation
* space of Destot
* space of Disse
* space opera
* space-operatic
* space out
* space perception
* space permeability
* space polar coordinate
* spaceport
* space power system
* space probe
* space processing
* space programme, space program
* space quadrature
* space quantization
* spacer
* space race
* space reconnaissance
* space reddening
* space request
* space research
* space roar
* space rock
* space rocket
* space rule
* space satellite
* space-saving
* space science
* space sexology
* spaceship
* space ship
* space shuttle
* space sickness
* space simulator
* space station
* space suit
* space suppression
* space technology
* space-time
* space-time crystal
* space-time trade-off
* space tourism
* space tourist
* space travel
* space vehicle
* space velocity
* space vessel
* space walk
* spaceward
* space wave
* space weapon
* space weather
* space work
* space writer
* spacey
* spacial
* spoiler space
* stare into space
* Stone space
* subdural space
* subspace
* sunspace
* swap space
* Talairach space
* Teichmüller space
* third space
* three-space
* time parameter space
* time-space
* time-space complexity
* time-space compression
* time-space convergence
* time-space grid
* topological space
* Traube's space
* Triebel-Lizorkin space
* u-space
* Virchow-Robin space
* visual space
* vowel space
* warm space
* waste of space
* watch this space
* whitespace
* word space
* Zariski-Riemann space
* Zariski space
* zero-width space

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

#### See also

Punctuation
* apostrophe ( ' ) ( ’ )
* curly brackets or braces (US) ( { } )
* square brackets or brackets (US) ( [ ] )
* colon ( : )
* comma ( , )
* dashes ( ‒ ) ( – ) ( — ) ( ― )
* ellipsis ( … )
* exclamation mark ( ! )
* fraction slash ( ⁄ )
* guillemets ( « » ) ( ‹ › )
* hyphen ( - ) ( ‐ )
* interpunct ( · )
* interrobang (rare) ( ‽ )
* brackets or parentheses (US, Canada) ( ( ) )
* full stop or period (US, Canada) ( . )
* question mark ( ? )
* quotation marks (formal) ( ‘ ’ ‚ ) ( “ ” „ )
* quotation marks (informal, computing) ( " ) ( ' )
* semicolon ( ; )
* slash or stroke (UK) ( / )
* space ( ] [ )

### Verb

space (third-person singular simple present spaces, present participle spacing, simple past and past participle spaced)
* (obsolete, intransitive) To roam, walk, wander.
** 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.ii:But she as Fayes are wont, in priuie place / Did spend her dayes, and lov'd in forests wyld to space.
* (transitive) To set some distance apart.
    Faye had spaced the pots at 8-inch intervals on the windowsill.
    The cities are evenly spaced.
* To insert or utilise spaces in a written text.
    This paragraph seems badly spaced.
* To space out (become distracted, lose focus).
** 1986 August 16, “Happy Birthday Doo (personal advertisement)”, in Gay Community News, volume 14, number 5, page 13:My sprout, like I'm totally spaced over you and besides I like older women (arh-arh). I love you...
* (transitive, science fiction) To kill (someone) by ejection into outer space, usually without a space suit.
    The captain spaced the traitors.
** 1952, Robert A. Heinlein, The Rolling Stones:Sound effect of blow with blunt instrument, groan, and the unmistakable cycling of an air lock—Castor: "Sorry, folks. My assistant has just spaced Mr. Rudolf. […] "
** 1995, J. Michael Straczynski, And Now for a Word (Babylon 5), season 2, episode 15, spoken by Dr. Stephen Franklin (Richard Biggs):A lot of people make jokes about spacing somebody, about shoving somebody out an airlock. I don't think it's funny. Never will.
* (intransitive, science fiction) To travel into and through outer space.
** 1947 January, Bernard I. Kahn, “Command”, in Astounding Science Fiction, volume 38, number 5:He well remembered, when he was a junior officer, how the sight of a well dressed, impeccably neat commanding officer, no matter how long they had been spacing, maintained the enthusiasm, confidence and morale of the officers and men.

#### Derived terms

* spaced
* spaced-out
* unspace

#### Related terms

* espace
* spacious
* spatial

#### Translations
### Anagrams

* -scape, EAPCs, EPACs, a-spec, aspec, capes, paces, scape

## Old French
### Noun

space oblique singular, m (oblique plural spaces, nominative singular spaces, nominative plural space)
* Alternative form of espace