ranging

Verb

range (third-person singular simple present ranges, present participle ranging, simple past and past participle ranged)

1. (intransitive) To travel over (an area, etc); to roam, wander.
2. (transitive) To rove over or through.
   • to range the fields
3. (intransitive, obsolete) To exercise the power of something over something else; to cause to submit to, over.
   • The soule is variable in all manner of formes, and rangeth to her selfe, and to her estate, whatsoever it be, the senses of the body, and all other accidents.1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 40, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
4. (transitive) To bring (something) into a specified position or relationship (especially, of opposition) with something else.
   • At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed no longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging alongside.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 22”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
5. (intransitive) Of a variable, to be able to take any of the values in a specified range.
   • The variable x ranges over all real values from 0 to 10.

   Synonyms:

   run

6. (transitive) To classify.
   • to range plants and animals in genera and species

See all 40 meanings of range