span.
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.
Meaning & usage
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.
He has a short attention span and gets bored within minutes.
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 or sold together; usually, such a pair of horses usually being 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
Where this word comes from
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.
To extend across (a gap or space between two sides).
The suspension bridge spanned the canyon.
To cover or extend over (an area or distance).
The parking lot spans three acres.
The forest spans the entire valley.
To extend through (a period of time).
The novel spans three centuries.
His career spanned five decades.
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.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English spannen, from Old English spannan, from Proto-Germanic *spannaną (“to stretch, span”). Cognate with German spannen, Dutch spannen.
simple past of spin
Where this word comes from
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”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.