HOW TO PRONOUNCE
span
/spæn/
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American Pronunciation Guide · 0:55
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What does span mean?
noun
- 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.
More meanings (19)
noun
- 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
verb
- To extend across (a gap or space between two sides).
- To cover or extend over (an area or distance).
- To extend through (a period of time).
- 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 fetter, as a horse; to hobble.
- (dated) To be matched, as horses.
- (dated) simple past of spin
proper noun
- A surname.
- Acronym of Suicide Prevention Advocacy Network.
- Acronym of Switched Port Analyzer, a Cisco technology.
Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0
IPA pronunciation
/spæn/
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.
In the pages of books
See this word in context.
Others, whose briefer span forbade their devoting themselves to studies so abstruse, beguiled the little tedium of the way with penny-papers.
Peking is now pointing with wonder and delight to a new exchange, spick and span, with a couple of ten-thousand-wire switchboards.
More book examples (3)
The span was 40 feet, the chord of the wings being 6 feet and the gap between them about the same.
When they reached the end of the river span, Alexander nodded to the superintendent, who quietly gave an order to the foreman.
Even this brief span of life means little else than weakness, physical and mental suffering and degeneracy for the majority of mankind.