span

Definitions

• 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.
• A portion of something by length; a subsequence.
• (architecture) 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) 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) 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 something.
• (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.