Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use span in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Span means 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. Example: “He has a short attention span and gets bored within minutes.”

Examples of span by meaning

nounA small space or a brief portion of time.

  • He has a short attention span and gets bored within minutes.
  • The unsilent present is a time of evaporating attention spans,2007, John Zerzan, Silence

nounThe spread or extent of an arch or between its abutments, or of a beam, girder, truss, roof, bridge, or the like...

  • 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.1961 January, “Talking of Trains: The Severn Bridge disaster”, in Trains Illustrated, page 5

nounA pair of horses or other animals driven or sold together; usually, such a pair of horses usually being similar in...

  • A span of water buffalo, terrified out of their usual lethargy by sight of the plane, stampeded, pursued by a swearing and scarcely less terrified Hindu farmer.2022, Lester Bernard Dent, The Thousand-Headed Man: A Doc Savage Adventure, DigiCat
  • A span of goats harnessed to a cart is second only to ponies, in a child's estimation; therefore, the beginning of this lesson may well be a span of goats thus employed.2016, Anna Botsford Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study, Ravenio Books
  • Float, covered with pieces of woolen cloth from the mill, decorated with flags and bunting, drawn by a span of white horses and a span of black ones covered with white woolen blankets1913 December, Nancy Darling, The Vermonter, volumes 18-19, Charles S. Forbes, page 258

nounThe time required to execute a parallel algorithm on an infinite number of processors, i.e. the shortest distance...

  • 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.2017, Ananya Kumar, Guy E. Blelloch, Robert Harper, “Parallel Functional Arrays”, in ACM SIGPLAN Notices, →DOI

verbTo extend across (a gap or space between two sides).

  • The suspension bridge spanned the canyon.
  • Completed in 1823, Gaunless Bridge was designed by George Stephenson to span the River Gaunless in West Auckland, forming part of a line serving Witton Park Colliery.2023 March 8, “Network News: Grant for repairs at Gaunless Bridge”, in RAIL, number 978, page 9

verbTo cover or extend over (an area or distance).

  • The parking lot spans three acres.
  • The forest spans the entire valley.

verbTo extend through (a period of time).

  • The novel spans three centuries.
  • His career spanned five decades.

verbTo measure by the span of the hand with the fingers extended, or with the fingers encompassing the object.

  • to span a space or distance; to span a cylinder

More sentences with span

  • If that subgraph contains the vertex in question then it must be spanning.From the entry contain
  • The egg has, during the span of history, represented mystery, magic, medicine, food and omen.From the entry omen
  • The LAN bridge uses a spanning tree algorithm.From the entry bridge
  • He has learning difficulties because of his short attention span.From the entry attention span
  • My favorite young adult writer, Jen Derbyshire, just published her 50th paperback novel, the latest in an adventure series spanning fifteen years.From the entry young adult
  • Across spans of millions of years, mountain ranges tear themselves apart through suicidal erosion.2026 February 27, Paul Salopek, “Hazard Cascade”, in National Geographic. From the entry disassembly
  • Gemini is the third sign of the zodiac, spanning the 60–89th degrees.2025 May 16th, “Gemini: May Legendary Wildcard”, in Rise of the Half Moon. From the entry Gemini
  • The declines in narcissism took place over the span of decades.2024 July 11, Christina Caron, “Narcissism Is a Trait That’s Hard to Shake, Study Says”, in The New York Times, archived from the original…. From the entry narcissism
  • They can span 40 klicks in a little over five hours.2023 December 12, Claire Wilkins, Courting the Prince of Moonlit Shadows, eGlobal Creative Publishing Inc., →ISBN. From the entry doxy
  • Our attention spans and tastes keep fracturing, and the ratings for late-night comedy keep declining.2023 September 27, Spencer Kornhaber, “The Weirdos Living Inside Our Phones”, in The Atlantic. From the entry monoculture
  • Our attention spans have been chopped up and commodified, sold off piecemeal to platforms and algorithms.2023 June 21, A. O. Scott, “Everyone Likes Reading. Why Are We So Afraid of It?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry commodify
  • No doubt for the kind of attention span that we all talk about.'2023 August 18, Kylie Minogue, “Kylie Minogue reveals what she really thinks about modern 'TikTokified' music - as the pop icon's Las…. From the entry TikTokify
  • Span researchers considered many names — “butterfin” among them — before settling on “copi,” Irons said.2022 June 22, John Flesher, “A ‘copi’ fillet? Illinois hopes new name for ‘invasive carp’ will convince diners”, in PBS. From the entry butterfin
  • “The gaps that bind us span more than the distances between words,” she writes.2020 April 24, Kristen Schott, “The Language of Self-Discovery: On Jessica J. Lee’s “Two Trees Make a Forest””, in Los Angeles Review of…. From the entry Wade-Giles
  • Since Loreto's mythohistory preceded modern academic segregations, it defiantly spans historians' temporal divides.2018, Karin Vélez, The Miraculous Flying House of Loreto: Spreading Catholicism in the Early Modern World, Princeton University Press…. From the entry mythohistory
  • This propulsion provides an initial velocity for the vehicle in a short time span.2013, Yung-Kang (Derby) Sun, Non-Propellant Propulsion for Space Flight, page 20. From the entry propulsion
  • A thirsty that has spanned thousands of years and never been quenched.2012, Joyce Bethwane, You Are Not Your Own, page 58. From the entry thirsty
  • Acquisition times can be long and prevent imaging within the time span of a single breathhold.2012, Mark Creager, Joseph Loscalzo, Joshua A. Beckman, Vascular Medicine: A Companion to Braunwald's Heart Disease, →ISBN. From the entry breathhold
  • The other side was consumed by shelves spanning from floor to ceiling.2011, Paradise Avenger, The Breaking of Poisonwood, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 80. From the entry walk-in
  • When an enclave spans a system boundary in a sysplex, it is called a multisystem enclave.2010, Mike Ebbers, Dino Tonelli, Jason Arnold, Co-locating Transactional and Data Warehouse Workloads on System z, page 245. From the entry enclave
  • In a process that spans decades, the male grows slowly towards his female counterpart.2010 April 14, Daniel Powell & Greg White, “Treegasm” (1:54 from the start), in Ugly Americans, season 1, episode 5. From the entry treeture
  • The latest trend is for 'nanobreaks' where people manage two full days away, spanning one overnight stay.2009 May 10, Kevin Feddy, “Shearings drives UK revival”, in Manchester Evening News. From the entry nanobreak
  • Critics of techniques to lengthen the human life span often paint a Struldbruggian picture of our future.2005, Ramez Naam, “Methuselah’s Genes”, in More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement, New York, N.Y.: Broadway…. From the entry struldbruggian
  • The average life span of the captive hedgie is 3 to 8 years.2003, Chris Pinney, The Complete Home Veterinary Guide, page 502. From the entry hedgie
  • TV viewers have attention spans of fifteen seconds, and then they hit the remote.2001, Lydia Wilen, Joan Wilen, How to Sell Your Screenplay, page 166. From the entry grabber
  • Lady Thatcher received a spic and span welcome yesterday from Tory bigwigs.2000 October 4, Kevin Maguire, “Bournemouth diary”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry spic and span

Meaning of span

  1. 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.
  2. noun 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.
  3. noun A small space or a brief portion of time.

Full definition of span

Questions about span in a sentence

How do you use span in a sentence?
Span is used as a noun and verb. For example: “He has a short attention span and gets bored within minutes.”
What is a short sentence with span?
“His career spanned five decades.”
What does span mean?
Span means 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.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: span (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use span in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/span. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.