SPANS

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.

"He has a short attention span and gets bored within minutes."

A portion of something by length; a subsequence.

To extend through the distance between or across.

"The suspension bridge spanned the canyon."

To extend through (a time period).

"The novel spans three centuries."

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"