Showing results for "span"

• past participle of spin.
• past tense form of spin.

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• span
  span

  noun

  the distance between the tip of the thumb and the tip of the little finger when the hand is fully extended.
• Span.
  Span.

  abbreviation

  Spaniard.

span

¹ American  

[span] / spæn /

noun

1. the distance between the tip of the thumb and the tip of the little finger when the hand is fully extended.

2. a unit of length corresponding to this distance, commonly taken as 9 inches (23 centimeters).

3. a distance, amount, piece, etc., of this length or of some small extent.

   a span of lace.

4. Civil Engineering, Architecture.

   1. the distance between two supports of a structure.

   2. the structure so supported.

   3. the distance or space between two supports of a bridge.

5. the full extent, stretch, or reach of anything.

   a long span of memory.

6. Aeronautics. the distance between the wing tips of an airplane.

7. a limited space of time, as the term or period of living.

   Our span on earth is short.

8. Mathematics. the smallest subspace of a vector space that contains a given element or set of elements.

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verb (used with object)

spanned, spanning

1. to measure by the hand with the thumb and little finger extended.

2. to encircle with the hand or hands, as the waist.

3. to extend over or across (a section of land, a river, etc.).

4. to provide with something that extends over.

   to span a river with a bridge.

5. to extend or reach over (space or time).

   a memory that spans 90 years.

6. Mathematics. to function (in a subspace of a vector space) as a span.

7. Archery. to bend (the bow) in preparation for shooting.

span ² American  

[span] / spæn /

noun

1. a pair of horses or other animals harnessed and driven together.

   Synonyms:

   team

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span ³ American  

[span] / spæn /

verb

Archaic.

1. a simple past tense of spin.

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Span. ⁴ American  

abbreviation

1. Spaniard.

2. Spanish.

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span ¹ British  

/ spæn /

noun

1. the interval, space, or distance between two points, such as the ends of a bridge or arch

2. the complete duration or extent

   the span of his life

3. psychol the amount of material that can be processed in a single mental act

   apprehension span

   span of attention

4. short for wingspan

5. a unit of length based on the width of an expanded hand, usually taken as nine inches

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verb

1. to stretch or extend across, over, or around

2. to provide with something that extends across or around

   to span a river with a bridge

3. to measure or cover, esp with the extended hand

Span. ² British  

abbreviation

1. Spanish

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span ³ British  

/ spæn /

noun

1. a team of horses or oxen, esp two matched animals

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span ⁴ British  

/ spæn /

verb

1. archaic a past tense of spin

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span Idioms  

1. see spick and span.

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Synonym Usage

See pair.

Etymology

Origin of span¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English noun spanne, sponne, spayn, Old English span(n), spon(n); cognate with German Spanne, Dutch span, Old Norse spǫnn; the verb is derivative of the noun

Origin of span²

An Americanism dating to 1760–70; from Dutch: “team (of oxen, horses)”

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Explanation

Any distance between two things is called a span. These end points can be physical, like the span of a rope between two trees, or they can be more abstract, such as the span of time between five and six o'clock. Span comes from the Old English spann, the width of the stretched-out hand, measured from thumb to little finger. It came to refer to various other measurements, such as the distance across an arch. The first reference to a length of time came in the late 16th century, and the phrase "attention span" first appeared in 1922 (as "span of attention").

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

span Span. spanned spanning

The $1 million fund netted a nearly 24% return on several-dozen bags over a 15-month span.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2026

Heading into Friday’s trading, Tesla had erased more than $200 billion in market capitalization over a two-day span.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 6, 2026

And virtually no one has the patience or attention span to read an entire article anymore, let alone engage with its ideas.

From Salon ● Nov. 5, 2026

The fitness entrepreneur, 46, shared an AI-generated rendering of the planned residence on Instagram, revealing that it will span between 12,000 and 13,000 square feet.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 30, 2026

Even in the span of these few minutes, his twitching, scratching, and grunting had become more pronounced.

From "The Hidden Gallery" by Maryrose Wood

From the Ital. melagrana, a pomegranate; Span. granada. 

From The Bible in Spain - Vol. 2 [of 2] by George Henry Borrow

In Arab. it is "Takwím," whence the Span. and Port.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 07 by Sir Richard Francis Burton

It apparently occurs first in O. Fr. in the forms gauverdine, galvardine, and thence into Ital. as gavardina, and Span. gabardina, a form which has influenced the English word.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 4 "G" to "Gaskell, Elizabeth" by Various

It represents Span. garbellar, from garbello, a sieve.

From The Romance of Words (4th ed.) by Ernest Weekley

It is thus related to jonquil, which comes, through French, from Span. junquillo, a diminutive from Lat. juncus, rush.

From The Romance of Words (4th ed.) by Ernest Weekley

Reports of the freezer tampering spanned the continent from Portugal to Estonia, hitting smaller independent retailers as well as big chains.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2026

Stewart, the storied actor whose performances spanned comic book films, Shakespearean stage productions and sci-fi TV, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2026

The star, who won acclaim on both stages and screens, died at his home in Los Angeles on Thursday after a career that spanned more than seven decades.

From BBC ● Oct. 30, 2026

Voice actor Eric Bauza, whose career spanned more than two decades and includes roles in animated series “Unikitty!,”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2026

The most dramatic photograph in the museum spanned an entire side of the room.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

The district, spanning some 900 square miles, is the largest in the country, and the majority of its 200,000 students are low-income.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2026

The charges relate to allegations from six women spanning a decade between 1999 and 2009.

From BBC ● Nov. 3, 2026

Singer and Jonathan Pollock, the firm’s two chief executives and chief investment officers, run one of the hedge-fund industry’s largest pools of capital, deployed across strategies spanning activist campaigns, buyouts, distressed-debt investing and commodities trading.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 2, 2026

That ancestor is estimated to have lived during the Early Miocene, an interval spanning roughly 23 million to 16 million years ago.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 1, 2026

Our Navajo nets kept everything connected like a spider’s strands spanning distant branches.

From "Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two" by Joseph Bruchac

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Related Words

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