noun

• (by extension) A small space or a brief portion of time.
  "He has a short attention span and gets bored within minutes."
• (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."
• (architecture, construction) 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.

verb

• (transitive) To extend through the distance between or across.
  "The suspension bridge spanned the canyon."
• (transitive) To extend through (a time period).
  "The parking lot spans three acres."
• (transitive) To 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"
• (mathematics) To generate an entire space by means of linear combinations.

verb

• (dated, now uncommon) simple past of spin
  "But when Adam delued, and Eue ſpan, VVho was then a Gentleman?"

name

• (computing) Acronym of Switched Port Analyzer, a Cisco technology.