span

Plural: spans

Noun

• the complete duration of something
  • "the job was finished in the span of an hour"
• the distance or interval between two points
• two items of the same kind
• a unit of length based on the width of the expanded human hand (usually taken as 9 inches)
• a structure that allows people or vehicles to cross an obstacle such as a river or canal or railway etc.
• the act of sitting or standing astride
• 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.
• A small space or a brief portion of time.
• A portion of something by length; a subsequence.
• The spread or extent of an arch or between its abutments, or of a beam, girder, truss, roof, bridge, or the like, between supports.
• The length of a cable, wire, rope, chain between two consecutive supports.
• 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.
• A pair of horses or other animals driven together; usually, such a pair of horses when similar in color, form, and action.
• The space of all linear combinations of vectors within a set.
• 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.
• wingspan of a plane or bird

Verb

Verb Forms: spanned, spanning, spans

• To extend or stretch across a space or time.
• to cover or extend over an area or time period; ,
  • "The parking lot spans 3 acres"
  • "The novel spans three centuries"
• To extend through the distance between or across.
• To extend through (a time period).
• To measure by the span of the hand with the fingers extended, or with the fingers encompassing the object.
• To generate an entire space by means of linear combinations.
• To be matched, as horses.
• To fetter, as a horse; to hobble.
• simple past of spin

Examples

• He has a short attention span and gets bored within minutes.
• His long word was able to span three premium squares, maximizing points.
• The novel spans three centuries.
• The parking lot spans three acres.
• The suspension bridge spanned the canyon.

Synonyms

brace, bridge, couple, couplet, cross, distich, duad, duet, duo, dyad, pair, straddle, sweep, traverse, twain, twosome, yoke

Related Words

chord, span-new, spang

Anagrams of span