span

IPA: spˈæn

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.
(by extension) A small space or a brief portion of time.
A portion of something by length; a subsequence.
(architecture, construction) The spread or extent of an arch or between its abutments, or of a beam, girder, truss, roof, bridge, or the like, between supports.
(architecture, construction) The length of a cable, wire, rope, chain between two consecutive supports.
(nautical) 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.
(US, Canada) A pair of horses or other animals driven together; usually, such a pair of horses when similar in color, form, and action.
(mathematics) The space of all linear combinations of vectors within a set.
(computing) 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
A surname.
Acronym of Suicide Prevention Advocacy Network.
(computing) Acronym of Switched Port Analyzer, a Cisco technology

(transitive) To extend through the distance between or across.
(transitive) To extend through (a time period).
(transitive) To measure by the span of the hand with the fingers extended, or with the fingers encompassing the object.
(mathematics) To generate an entire space by means of linear combinations.
(intransitive, US, dated) To be matched, as horses.
(transitive) To fetter, as a horse; to hobble.

Examples of "span" in Sentences

The events depicted in the title span the time frame from Saiyan Saga to the Kid Buu Saga.
Their average career span is just 2.5 years, and even the great ones seldom last a decade.
It will work with those voters whose attention span is too short to remember the first sentence of this post.
Sorry single-player games, your life span is shortening day by day and co - op is in all of our near futures to save us.
The average run differential for the 32 World Series teams in this span is +14.3, and 11 of the teams outscored their opponents by at least 20.
For Gulf residents fighting for economic survival, a nation's short attention span is deeply unsettling, especially with oil still washing ashore.
My attention span is usually not nearly that long, but Maass kept me and the rest of the writers in the room under his spell as he showed us how to plumb the depths of plot and character.