English Dictionary

span

/spæn/

noun

The space from the thumb to the end of the little finger when extended; nine inches; an eighth of a fathom. / (by extension) A small space or a brief portion of time.

The bridge spans across the river.

意味（1）

The space from the thumb to the end of the little finger when extended; nine inches; an eighth of a fathom.

Why in ten thousand years scarce will the rain and storms lessen a mountain top by a span in thickness?

意味（2）

(by extension) A small space or a brief portion of time.

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

意味（3）

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, […]

意味（4）

(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.

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.

意味（5）

(architecture, construction) The length of a cable, wire, rope, chain between two consecutive supports.

意味（6）

(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.

意味（7）

(US, Canada) A pair of horses or other animals driven together; usually, such a pair of horses when similar in color, form, and action.

意味（8）

(mathematics) The space of all linear combinations of something.

意味（9）

(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.

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.

意味（10）

wingspan of a plane or bird