spanner
Syllables: span·nerUK/ˈspænə/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
British/ˈspanə/
spanner noun: a hand tool for adjusting nuts and bolts.
Noun
spanner (plural spanners)
- A hand tool for adjusting nuts and bolts.
- Pass me that spanner, Jake; there's just one more bolt to screw in.
- Tools don’t have judgment or ethics, and they might fail to push back on bad ideas or dangerous requests. “Your spanner’s never like, ‘This shouldn’t be built,’” she said, using a British term for wrench.2025 December 19, Kashmir Hill, quoting Amanda Askell, “Why Do A.I. Chatbots Use ‘I’?”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- wrench
- Any of certain types of such a tool that have a pin or hook to engage the driven object.
- The groove in this toolholder is what the spanner grabs onto when you are changing the tool.
- One who, or that which, spans.
- The scheme of the spanner of continents and the desire of the little husbandman hoarding for his loved ones...1915, Florence Kiper Frank, The Jew to Jesus: and other poems
- A (usually sparse) graph whose shortest path distances approximate those in a dense graph or other metric space.
- A hand tool shaped like a small crank handle, for winding the spring of a wheel lock on a musket.
- The spanner for spanning or winding up the spring of the wheel lock.1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, Fig. 10., page xvi
- A device in early steam engines for moving the valves for the alternate admission and shutting off of the steam.
- A problem, dilemma or obstacle; something unexpected or troublesome (in the phrase spanner in the works)
- Halfway through the production of Macbeth, the director found that the stage was smaller than he expected. This really threw a spanner in the works.
- A stupid or unintelligent person; one prone to making mistakes, especially in language.
- You spanner, Rodney! I wanted some time, not a bunch of thyme!
Verb
spanner (third-person singular simple present spanners, present participle spannering, simple past and past participle spannered)
- To use a spanner; to fix with a spanner
spanner meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
spanner in Hindi
- hand tool for adjusting nuts and bolts
- पाना pānā
spanner in Tamil
- திருகி, மறை திருகி, புரியாணிச்சாவி, வில்லை முறுக்கி, மரைக்கிட்டி
spanner in Marathi
- hand tool for adjusting nuts and bolts
- पाना pānā
spanner in Urdu
- hand tool for adjusting nuts and bolts
- پانا pānā
More languagesFewer languages
- spanner in Bengali
- প্লাস plaś, সাঁড়াশিবিশেষ śãṛaśibiśeś
- spanner in Malayalam
- അളക്കുന്നവൻ, കമാൽകെട്ടുന്നവൻ, സ്പാനർ
- spanner in Kannada
- ಮೊಳೆತಿರುಪು, ತಿರುಪು, ತಿರುಪು ಮೊಳೆಯನ್ನು ತಿರುಗಿಸುವ ಸಾಧನ, ಬಿಲ್ಮುಡಿಕೆ
- spanner in Punjabi
- چابی cābī, ਚਾਬੀ cābī
- spanner in Tagalog
- liyabe
- spanner in Arabic
- مِفْتَاح رَبْط miftāḥ rabṭ
- spanner in Malay
- sepana
- spanner in Indonesian
- kunci pas, sepanar
- spanner in Thai
- ประแจ bprà-jɛɛ
- spanner in Vietnamese
- mỏ lết, cờ lê
- spanner in Myanmar
- ကဏန်းလက်မ ka.nan:lakma.
Examples of spanner in a sentence
- Halfway through the production of Macbeth, the director found that the stage was smaller than he had expected. This really threw a spanner in the works.
- The kids' involvement was unfortunately more of a spanner in the works than a helpful contribution toward Daddy's progress on the task, but he gamely pretended to be thankful anyway.
- Jack discarded a length of wood, two twists of wire, his two-up kip and a spanner.
Synonyms of spanner
Forms of spanner
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | spanners |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | spanners |
| present participle | spannering |
| past participle | spannered |
| past | spannered |
Origin of spanner
From span + -er.
Words formed from spanner
- adjustable spanner
- bobbejaan spanner
- crescent spanner
- dog bone spanner
- put a spanner in the works
- ring spanner
- shifting spanner
- spanner barb
- spanner crab
- spannered
- spanner in the works
- spannerless
- spanner wrench
- spider spanner
- throw a spanner in the works
- throw a spanner into the works
- torque spanner
Phrases with spanner
Words that rhyme with spanner
Questions about spanner
- What does spanner mean?
- Spanner means a hand tool for adjusting nuts and bolts.
- What is spanner in Hindi?
- Spanner in Hindi is पाना (pānā). See Spanner meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is spanner?
- Spanner can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce spanner?
- Spanner is pronounced /ˈspænə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of spanner?
- The plural of spanner is spanners.
Words near spanner in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spanner (page history and authors); spanner (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spanner (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spanner (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); چابی (Punjabi) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-spanner.ogg, en-us-spanner.ogg.
Cite this entry: “spanner.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spanner. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.