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Span

//spæn// name, noun, verb

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.
  2. 2
    Acronym of Suicide Prevention Advocacy Network. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of
  3. 3
    Acronym of Switched Port Analyzer, a Cisco technology. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of
Noun
  1. 1
    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.
  2. 2
    the act of sitting or standing astride wordnet
  3. 3
    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.
  4. 4
    a structure that allows people or vehicles to cross an obstacle such as a river or canal or railway etc. wordnet
  5. 5
    A small space or a brief portion of time. broadly

    "He has a short attention span and gets bored within minutes."

Show 12 more definitions
  1. 6
    the distance or interval between two points wordnet
  2. 7
    A portion of something by length; a subsequence.

    "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, […]"

  3. 8
    a unit of length based on the width of the expanded human hand (usually taken as 9 inches) wordnet
  4. 9
    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 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."

  5. 10
    two items of the same kind wordnet
  6. 11
    The length of a cable, wire, rope, chain between two consecutive supports.
  7. 12
    the complete duration of something wordnet
  8. 13
    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.
  9. 14
    A pair of horses or other animals driven together; usually, such a pair of horses when similar in color, form, and action. Canada, US
  10. 15
    The space of all linear combinations of vectors within a set.
  11. 16
    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.

    "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."

  12. 17
    wingspan of a plane or bird
Verb
  1. 1
    To extend through the distance between or across. transitive

    "The suspension bridge spanned the canyon."

  2. 2
    simple past of spin dated, form-of, past, uncommon

    "But when Adam delued, and Eue ſpan, VVho was then a Gentleman?"

  3. 3
    to cover or extend over an area or time period wordnet
  4. 4
    To extend through (a time period). transitive

    "The parking lot spans three acres."

  5. 5
    To measure by the span of the hand with the fingers extended, or with the fingers encompassing the object. transitive

    "to span a space or distance; to span a cylinder"

Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    To generate an entire space by means of linear combinations.
  2. 7
    To be matched, as horses. US, dated, intransitive
  3. 8
    To fetter, as a horse; to hobble. transitive

    "We spanned the dogs high up a corrie to the south of the ridge […]"

Etymology

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.

Etymology 2

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

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”).

Etymology 4

* As a Slovene surname, from župan (“head of a district”), from župa (“district”); compare Zupan. * As a German surname, variant of Spahn; also Spann. * As a Jewish surname from Span (“chip”) (probably through Yiddish).

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