span
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: architecture
business
computing
construction
engineering
manufacturing
mathematics
natural-sciences
nautical
physical-sciences
sciences
transport
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *(s)pend-der.
Proto-Germanic *spannō
Old English spann
Middle English spanne
English span
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.
Inflected forms:
form: spans
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: spans
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: spanning
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: spanned
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: spanned
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
gloss: A small space or a brief portion of time.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
examples: He has a short attention span and gets bored within minutes.
"Why in ten thousand years scarce will the rain and storms lessen a mountain top by a span in thickness?"
Yet not to Earth's contracted Span,
Thy Goodneſs let me bound; […]
Life's but a span; I'll every inch enjoy.
The unsilent present is a time of evaporating attention spans,
gloss: A portion of something by length; a subsequence.
pos: noun
examples: 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, […]
gloss: The spread or extent of an arch or between its abutments, or of a beam, girder, truss, roof, bridge, or the like, between supports.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
gloss: The length of a cable, wire, rope, chain between two consecutive supports.
pos: noun
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
gloss: A pair of horses or other animals driven together; usually, such a pair of horses when similar in color, form, and action.
pos: noun
tags: Canada
US
gloss: The space of all linear combinations of vectors within a set.
pos: noun
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
gloss: wingspan of a plane or bird
pos: noun
gloss: To extend across (a gap or space between two sides).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The suspension bridge spanned the canyon.
The rivers were spanned by arches of solid masonry.
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.
gloss: To cover or extend over (an area or distance).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The parking lot spans three acres.
The forest spans the entire valley.
gloss: To extend through (a period of time).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The novel spans three centuries.
His career spanned five decades.
gloss: To measure by the span of the hand with the fingers extended, or with the fingers encompassing the object.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: to span a space or distance; to span a cylinder
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.
gloss: To generate an entire space by means of linear combinations.
pos: verb
gloss: To be matched, as horses.
pos: verb
tags: US
dated
intransitive
gloss: To fetter, as a horse; to hobble.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: We spanned the dogs high up a corrie to the south of the ridge […]
Related words: spang
spank
yepsen
chord
Derived words: arm span
attention span
clearspan
cospan
drawspan
endspan
eyespan
forspan
gerospan
handspan
healthspan
inspan
knot span
legspan
life span
lifespan
lifting span
linear span
linkspan
long-span
mainspan
makespan
memory span
midspan
outspan
overspan
palmspan
span block
span counter
span iron
spank
spanless
spannable
spanned → unspanned
spanner
spanning → multi-
overspanning
span of control
span roof
span shackle
Spansule
spanwise
spanworm
spick-and-span
subspan
supraspan
tetraspan
timespan
time-span reduction
wakespan
widespan
wingspan
Translations:
lang: Finnish
word: jänneväli
lang: Hungarian
word: szárnytávolság
lang: Hungarian
word: fesztávolság
lang: Māori
word: tāwhana
lang: Russian
word: пролёт
roman: proljót
lang: Swedish
word: spann
lang: Ukrainian
word: перекриття́
roman: perekryttjá