Word: range Part of Speech: verb Etymology: From Middle English rengen, from Old French rengier (“to range, to rank, to order,”), from the noun renc, reng, ranc, rang (“a rank, row”), from Frankish *hring, from Proto-Germanic *hringaz (“ring, circle, curve”). Doublet of ring. Pronunciation: /ˈɹeɪnd͡ʒ/, /ˈɹɛjnd͡ʒ/, /ˈɾend͡ʒ/, /ˈɾeːnd͡ʒ/, /ˈɹeːnd͡ʒ/ 1. To travel over (an area, etc); to roam, wander. Labels: intransitive 2. To rove over or through. Labels: transitive Example: to range the fields Example: Novv to the copſe thy leſſer ſpaniel take, / Teach him to range the ditch, and force the brake; […] 3. To exercise the power of something over something else; to cause to submit to, over. Labels: intransitive, obsolete Example: The soule is variable in all manner of formes, and rangeth to her selfe, and to her estate, whatsoever it be, the senses of the body, and all other accidents. 4. To bring (something) into a specified position or relationship (especially, of opposition) with something else. Labels: transitive Example: At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed no longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging alongside. Example: In ranging herself as a partisan on the side of Major Pallaby Mrs. Hoopington had been largely influenced by the fact that she had made up her mind to marry him at an early date. 5. Of a variable, to be able to take any of the values in a specified range. Labels: intransitive Example: The variable x ranges over all real values from 0 to 10. Example: The police seized 12,000 files containing information on a wide range of organisations and individuals. The ADL claimed to be only monitoring ‘hate groups’, and denied passing information to Israel or South Africa. But the files ranged over Arab-American community organisations, trade unions, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, Anti-Apartheid, Women in Black and the International Jewish Peace Union. Only a relative handful of files dealt with the far right. 6. To classify. Labels: transitive Example: to range plants and animals in genera and species Example: The coins are ranged into nine classes. 7. To form a line or a row. Labels: intransitive Example: The front of a house ranges with the street. Example: The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms, / Amidst the soundless solitudes immense / Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs. 8. To be placed in order; to be ranked; to admit of arrangement or classification; to rank. Labels: intransitive Example: And range with humble livers in content. 9. To set in a row, or in rows; to place in a regular line or lines, or in ranks; to dispose in the proper order. Labels: transitive Example: Maccabeus ranged his army by hands. Example: Were this dependence of the body and mind more studied, and its effects collected and ranged into proper order; no doubt, we would be able to form a better judgment of it, and see further into the good purposes to which it serves; 10. To place among others in a line, row, or order, as in the ranks of an army; usually, reflexively and figuratively, to espouse a cause, to join a party, etc. Labels: transitive Example: It would be absurd in me to range myself on the side of the Duke of Bedford and the corresponding society. 11. To be native to, or live in, a certain district or region. Example: The peba ranges from Texas to Paraguay. 12. To determine the range to a target. 13. To sail or pass in a direction parallel to or near. Example: to range the coast 14. Of a player, to travel a significant distance for a defensive play. Example: Willie, playing in left-center, raced toward a ball no human had any business getting a glove to. Mays ranged to his left, searching, digging in, pouring on the speed, as the crowd screamed its anticipation of a triple.