Span meaning : 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. 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 length of a cable, wire, rope, chain between two consecutive supports. 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. A pair of horses or other animals driven together; usually, such a pair of horses when similar in color, form, and action. The space of all linear combinations of something. 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.