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Span

verb
1.
To cover or extend over an area or time period.  Synonyms: cross, sweep, traverse.  "The parking lot spans 3 acres" , "The novel spans three centuries"



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"Span" Quotes from Famous Books



... overflowing cup, And work a trifle in their little way; Just tip the solar-system downside up, What is there that they can't do, who shall say? While for one glance a thousand pine away, Which certainly is most disastrous when Our span is not too long as you will say, And what of their short three score years and ten? But this may not apply ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott

... trained to five or six good carols, without knowing why. We did not care to disappoint them if a February thaw setting in on the 24th of December should break up the spree before it began. Then I had told Howland that he must reserve for me a span of good horses, and a sleigh that I could pack sixteen small children into, tight-stowed. Howland is always good about such things, knew what the sleigh was for, having done the same in other years, and made the span four horses of his own accord, ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... them; and it was this difference that was the most horrible point. The fatal age in Mrs. Brett's hands was—not past, no, for here SHE was. But she might have died when she was twenty-one. Twenty-three seemed to be the utmost span. She was ...
— A. V. Laider • Max Beerbohm

... lie drowned in a heap, And Southey's last Pan has pillowed his sleep; That Felo de se who, half drunk with his Malmsey, Walked out of his depth and was lost in a calm sea, 10 Singing "Glory to God" in a spick and span stanza, The like (since Tom Sternhold was choked) never ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... all as she went—all she was to do. There was the threadbare blanket they used for a silence cloth, and the table-cloth with the red stain by Johnny's place where he had spilled cranberry jelly the night before last, when the cloth was "span clean." There were the places to set, as always, with the same old dishes and the same old knives and forks; and with the mechanical precision born of long practice she would rightly place, without half looking at them, the various napkins each in its slightly different wooden ring. The utmost variety ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin

... party being quickly organised under the indefatigable Jackson, the axe was called into use again and the remaining shrouds cut away, the fore and main-braces being passed round the stump of the foremast, which stood some twenty feet or so from the deck, in order to prevent the span from going adrift ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... of the vaulting. The spandrils throughout are relieved with trefoils and quatrefoils, deeply sunk and backed with Purbeck marble; and, on the whole, the contrast of light and shade, depth and projection, produces a very fine effect. The clerestory arches are of the same span, but each is divided into three smaller ones, the centre arch being higher than those on either side, in order to admit light through the windows behind, which are three lancet-shaped lights under one arch in the outer wall, and are, ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous

... Eleatics he denies that the senses are an absolute test of truth. "For straitened are the powers that have been shed upon our frames, and many the frets that cross us and defeat our care, and short the span of unsatisfying existence wherein 'tis given us to see. Shortlived as a wreath of smoke men rise and fleet away, persuaded but of that alone which each has chanced to light upon, driven hither and thither, and vainly do they pray to find the whole. For this men may not see or hear or grasp ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall

... span as I've seen for a long time," said the elder Ben, as the children came trotting down the path hand in hand, with the four blue bows at the ends of their braids bobbing briskly up ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... ends of the beam projected about thirty inches beyond the bridge at each side, and they supported braces which extended diagonally upward to the crossing ends of the spars. When this was done the temporary crosspiece above referred to was removed. As the span between the center cross beam and the banks was a little too long to provide a steady floor, a couple of intermediate cross beams were suspended from the inclined spars. The floor beams were then laid in place and covered with a ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... stable,—not even values,—not even the concepts good and evil. He likens life unto a stream. But foot-bridges and railings span the stream, and they seem to stand firm. Many will be reminded of good and evil when they look upon these structures; for thus these same values stand over the stream of life, and life flows on beneath them and leaves them standing. When, however, winter comes and the stream gets frozen, many ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... dirl![77] Coffins stood round, like open presses, That shawed the dead in their last dresses; And by some devilish cantrip[78] slight, Each in its cauld hand held a light, By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table A murderer's banes in gibbet airns;[79] Twa span-lang, wee unchristened bairns; A thief new-cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab[80] did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted; Five scimitars wi' murder crusted; A garter which a babe had ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... of being compelled to work. Ungka was in fact a baboon from the wilds of Sumatra. He had been caught young by a Malay lad, who sold him to Captain Van Deck. He was about two feet and a half high, and the span of his arms was four feet. His face was perfectly free from hair, except at the sides, where it grew like whiskers. It also rather projected over his forehead, but he had very little beard. His coat was jet black, as was the skin of his face. His hands ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... roads. The neighbourhood seemed to breathe a tranquil prosperity. Red-cheeked emissaries of butcher, baker, and grocer, order-book in hand, knocked cheerily at kitchen doors, and went smiling away; the ponies they drove were well fed and frisky, their carts spick and span. The church of the parish, an imposing edifice, dated only from a few years ago, and had cost its noble founder a sum of money which any church-going parishioner would have named to you with proper awe. The population was largely female, and every shopkeeper who knew ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... flings himself upon its stream, and lives within its rhythm. The thesis which maintains the inevitable relativity of all human knowledge originates mainly from the metaphors employed to describe the act of knowledge. The subject occupies this point, the object that; how are we to span the distance? Our perceptory organs fill the interval; how are we to grasp anything but what reaches us in the receiver at the end ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy

... grandfather, spick and span, clean shaved, hat brushed, white buckskin gloves, bamboo cane, brown great-coat, walking as upright and solemn as may be, having his lady ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")

... you, at least," he murmured as though to himself. He stood aside and waved a hand courteously, inviting us to pass. We crossed. At the base of the span one of ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... added to himself, as the professor was going down the stairs. "He is a span higher than I am, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various

... of the maidens tripped lightly down the span of the arch until near the very end, leaning over to observe the group below. She was exquisitely fair, dainty as a lily and graceful as a bough swaying in the breeze. "Why, it's Polychrome!" exclaimed Button-Bright in a voice of mingled wonder and delight. ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum

... not. For life deals thus with Man; To die alone deceived or with the mass, Or disillusioned to complete his span. Thermopylae or Golgotha, all one, The young dead legions in the narrow pass; The stark black cross against the ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer

... wrought for Right and Truth, For God and man, From the golden hours of bright-eyed youth, To life's mid-span?" ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... approve, And loudly boast discoveries not their own. Unnumbered accidents, and various ills, Attend thy pack, hang hovering o'er their heads, And point the way that leads to Death's dark cave. Short is their span; few at the date arrive Of ancient Argus in old Homer's song 180 So highly honoured: kind, sagacious brute! Not even Minerva's wisdom could conceal Thy much-loved master from thy nicer sense. Dying, his lord he owned, viewed him all o'er With eager eyes, then closed ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... a certain woman who did not pay due reverence to Mother Friday, but set to work on a distaff-ful of flax, combing and whirling it. She span away till dinner-time, then suddenly sleep fell upon her—such a deep sleep! And when she had gone to sleep, suddenly the door opened and in came Mother Friday, before the eyes of all who were there, clad in a white dress, and in such a rage! ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... agriculture are making increasing use of radioisotopes to improve manufacturing, testing, and crop-raising. Atomic energy has improved the ability of the healing professions to combat disease, and holds promise for an eventual increase in man's life span. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... right to exist. We are getting free. We are thinking in every direction. We are investigating with the microscope and the telescope. We are digging into the earth and finding souvenirs of all the ages. We are finding out something about the laws of health and disease. We are adding years to the span of human life and we are making the world fit to live in. That is what we are doing, and every man that has an honest thought and expresses it, helps, and every man that tries to keep honest thought from being expressed is an obstruction and ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... who went to divide the property drove a span of mules out to the farm, but when he went to divide the seventeen into halves, thirds, and ninths he found it was impossible with live mules; mules not being very valuable, he unhitched one of his own, putting it with the other ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... of black on the edge of the night sky? Were these the lofty arches of an immense bridge? What river did it span? Why was it broken down in parts? No, it was not a bridge, it was an ancient aqueduct. All around was the holy ground of the Campagna, and there, in the distance, the Albanian hills, and their peaks and the ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... with the duties behind the urn, and Ruth and Mollie in serge skirts and spick and span white blouses looked as fresh as paint, and a great many times as pretty. They were laughing and chatting with Victor Druce, who had donned Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, and was quite the country gentleman both in appearance and in ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... of them," returned the Woodsman. "The nymph who cared for you as a mother seems now like a sister to you; by and by, when you grow old and gray, she will seem like a daughter. Yet another brief span and you will be but a memory, while ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum

... days come back to me to-night Across the span of many happy years— Dreams, haunted by the music of the spheres, And glowing skies of gold and chrysolite. The world of science bursting on my sight, And words of wisdom falling on my ears, The rhythmic thought of poets, ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe

... An old and widowed man, Whose years had reached life's farthest, frailest span, And o'er whose head, as every moment flew, Eternity its dark'ning twilight threw, Lay in his silent chamber, dull and lone, Watching the midnight stars, as one by one They as slow, voiceless spirits glided past The window of his solitude, and cast Their pale light on his brow; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... I was playing about indolently in the water, I heard the sound of hoofs and wheels on the bridge. I struck downstream and shouted, as the open spring wagon came into view on the middle span. They stopped the horse, and the two girls in the bottom of the cart stood up, steadying themselves by the shoulders of the two in front, so that they could see me better. They were charming up there, huddled together in the ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... has a limited span and naught may avail to extend it. This is manifested by the impermanence of human beings. But yet whenever necessary I will hereafter make my appearance from time to time as a god, a sage, or a Buddha."—Last words of Shaka the Buddha, in ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... infinitely Edwards's inferiors in everything save lung-power, were spread with much din through many churches: pictures of an angry Moloch holding over the infernal fires the creatures whom he had predestined to rebel, and the statement that "hell is filled with infants not a span long," were among the choice oratorical outgrowths of this period. With these loud and lurid utterances went strivings after sacerdotal rule. The presbyter—"old priest writ large"—took high ground in all these villages: the simplest and most harmless amusements were denounced, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... last scene; here Heavens appoint My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race, Idly yet quickly run, hath this last pace, My span's last inch, my minute's latest point, And gluttonous Death will instantly unjoint My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space: But my ever-waking part shall see that face Whose fear already shakes my every joint. Then as my soul to heaven, her first seat, takes flight, And ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... heart gave another great leap, as every boy's must on hearing that he is to see London for the first time. But here we all turned at a cry from Billy Priske, between whose planted ankles Master Fiennes had mischievously crept and was measuring the span between with extended thumb and little finger. My father stooped, haled him to his feet by the collar, and demanded ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... spotlessly clean apparition in blue without either waterproof or umbrella. I refer to Jane. She suddenly appeared, as I was passing The Ladies' Tea Association Rooms, walking in front of me. She looked just the same as when I last saw her—spick and span, and—dry. I repeat the word—dry—for that is what attracted my attention most. Despite the deluge, not a single raindrop touched her—the plumes on her toque were splendidly erect and curly, her shoe-buckles sparkled, her patent leathers were spotless, whilst the cloth of her coat ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell

... to be built in places where least expected, and sometimes the writer has been able to conveniently span the vein with an arch and avoid trouble; but where it cannot be conveniently arched over, it will be necessary to sheath pile for a trench and lay in broad sections of concrete until the space is crossed, the sheath piling being drawn and reset in sections as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... see 'em all down that man's throat." And says she, in still more bitter axents, "You will see four mules, and a span of horses, two buggies, a double sleigh, and three buffalo-robes. He has drinked 'em all up—and 2 horse-rakes, a cultivator, ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... we travelled to Liverpool by the night mail, and how we embarked upon the steamer Gambia, it is unnecessary to relate in detail. Suffice it to say that within twenty-four hours of meeting the big negro we were safely on board the splendid mail-steamer where everything was spick and span. Kouaga had engaged a cabin for our exclusive use, and the captain himself had evidently ascertained that Omar was a person of importance, for in passing us on deck he paused to chat affably, and express a hope that we should find the voyage a ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... thought Roger, intending no disrespect. He loved his mother and appreciated her good qualities, but he saw the awful chasm between those two souls, which no ceremony of marriage could ever span. ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... Unabridged makes these words almost synonymous, but 'era' usually connotes a span of time rather than a point in time. The {epoch} usage ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... tweed caps they wore, they repacked their portmanteaus, watched a favourable opportunity, and slipped out of the hotel and proceeded to a quiet bye-street near the wharf. Here their macintoshes and veils disappeared into the river, and two spick and span young gentlemen emerged into the main thoroughfare again. The feeling was peculiar at first, but as no one appeared to take particular notice of them, they soon felt complete ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... really grown up, associating with men and doing a man's work. He had charge of the circulation—which is to say, he carried the papers. During the last year of the Mexican War, when a telegraph-wire found its way across the Mississippi to Hannibal—a long sagging span, that for some reason did not break of its own weight—he was given charge of the extras with news from the front; and the burning importance of his mission, the bringing of news hot from the field of battle, spurred him to endeavors ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... our mistakes is that we confuse life and lifetime, and construe life to mean the span of life. In this conception the unit of measurement is so large that our concept of life evaporates into a vague generalization. Life is too specific, too definite for that. The quality of life may better be measured and tested in one-hour periods of duration. When the clock strikes nine, ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... he to span the crocodile-infested waters? There was no canoe nearer than the Mosula village, and Paulvitch was none too sure that the Kincaid would still be at anchor in the river when he returned should he ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... on, the sun glows and is gone, From span to span; The tides sweep scornfully the shore, as when The ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Under this luminous span, or through it where the crossing gullies ran, Mary Anerley rode at leisure, allowing her pony to choose his pace. That privilege he had long secured, in right of age, and wisdom, and remarkable ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... half and the second half of Elizabeth's reign have not been deemed wide enough by the writer to justify separate treatment. The whole reign was a time when the superstition was gaining ground. Yet in the span of years from Reginald Scot to the death of Elizabeth there was enough of reaction to justify a differentiation of statistics. In both periods, and more particularly in the first, we may be sure that some of the records have been lost and that a ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... the unhygienic modes of living are undoubtedly greatly to shorten human life. Most other mammals live about five times the growing period. In man, this would mean that the normal life-span should be about a century and a quarter, an age which is now reached only in one case out ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... desolation were very marked on the early afternoon of New Year's Eve which saw Varick striding up and down the deserted platform waiting for Dr. Panton, and Dr. Panton's inseparable companion, a big, ugly, intelligent spaniel called Span. ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes

... removed from the old and narrow Bridge Street Station to the new palatial St. Enoch, and there a splendid set of offices was provided. This was another advantage much to my taste. St. Enoch was and is certainly a most handsome and commodious terminus. Originally it had one great roof of a single span, second only to that of St. Pancras Station. Other spans, not so great, have since been added, for the business of St. Enoch rapidly grew, and enlarged accommodation soon became necessary. In 1879 it had six long and spacious platforms, ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow

... what have we not to undergo—to discover what water is, and to become capable of judging of Turner! It is a comfort, however, that he is likely to have but few judges. Graduate has courage to undergo any thing. Ariel was nothing in his ubiquity to him, though he put a span about the world in forty minutes; "but there was some apology for the public's not understanding this, for few people have had the opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and when they have, cannot face it. To hold by a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... in the brief span of his administration. He was very tired. Almost his last words were, "Life is not worth living." Our public men need sympathy, not criticism. Macaulay, after all his brilliant career in Parliament, after being world-renowned ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... fish that had occurred in the neighborhood of Allahabad, India. It is said that the fish were of the chalwa species, about a span in length and a ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... crooked streets, the tall half-timbered houses with their many-dormered roofs, and there is the grey Minster, which has looked down on the city through all her fortunes. To the north lie the newer quarters of the town, spick and span, and to the south are great arsenals and barracks, guarded by a ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... Franklin stands preeminent in the interest which is aroused by a study of his character, his mind, and his career. One becomes attached to him, bids him farewell with regret, and feels that for such as he the longest span of life is all too short. Even though dead, he attracts a personal regard which renders easily intelligible the profound affection which so many men felt for him while living. It may be doubted whether any one man ever had so many, such constant, and such firm friends ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... the truth," he said, "you can spend your brief remaining span of life to better purpose than in a mad combat with one who has done you ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy

... box down on the ground: it burst open with the shock, and out stepped a little old man. He was only one span high, but his beard was a span and a quarter long, and trailed ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... glow came and stood in the air among the tamarinds, and there was nothing anywhere but luminous space and indolent stillness, and the wrangling and winging of crows. What persisted, then, under the span of the sky was the old India of rich traditions, and a thinking bullock beneath the yoke, jogging through the evening to his own place where the blue haze hid the little huts on the rim of the city, the real India, and the rest was fiction ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... days, how large the mind of man; A godlike force enclosed within a span! To climb the skies we spurn our nature's clog, And toil as Titans to ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... of those masters of violence, the princes and knights: it was what broke up the icefloes in that mighty deluge. Still, the chief aim of Christianity is not so much to make this life pleasant as to render us worthy of a better. It looks away over this span of time, over this fleeting dream, and seeks to lead us to eternal welfare. Its tendency is ethical in the highest sense of the word, a sense unknown in Europe till its advent; as I have shown you, by putting the morality and ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer

... private life, a condition of society implying so many discoveries and so long a practice in thought and handicraft, could not have been an early stage of existence. Long vistas are dimly visible into a past far vaster than the span as yet laid open to our view, and we long to pierce the tantalizing gloom. There, in that gloom, lurk the beginnings of the races whose high achievements we admire, emulate, and in many ways surpass; there, if we could but send a ray of light into the darkness of ages, ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... chin, behind the redoubtable Hercules. He had a bran-new hat on, a velvet-collared blue coat with metal buttons, that anywhere but in the searching glare and contrast of London might have passed for a spic-and-span new one; a small, striped, step-collared toilanette vest; and the aforesaid drab trousers, in the right-hand pocket of which his disengaged hand kept fishing up and slipping down an avalanche of silver, which made a pleasant ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... on the canal he met the consumptive man with the doll's face and the brimless hat coming towards him down the slope of the bridge with little steps, tightly buttoned into his chocolate overcoat, and holding his furled umbrella a span or two from him like a divining rod. It must be eleven, he thought, and peered into a dairy to see the time. The clock in the dairy told him that it was five minutes to five but, as he turned away, he heard a clock somewhere near him, but unseen, beating ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... considerable time after the tide had begun to flow, the artificers were occupied in removing the forge from the top of the building, to which the gangway or wooden bridge gave great facility; and, although it stretched or had a span of forty-two feet, its construction was extremely simple, while the road-way was perfectly firm and steady. In returning from this visit to the rock every one was pretty well soused in spray before reaching the tender at two o'clock p.m., ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... thousand cheerful omens give Hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh: He who has tamed the elements, shall not live The slave of his own passions; he whose eye Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky, And in the abyss of brightness dares to span The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high, In God's magnificent works his will shall scan; And love and peace shall make their paradise ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington

... is old and thou art young; the world is large and thou art small; Cease, atom of a moments span, To hold thyself ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... off. The longer she sat there the more that impression grew; he seemed so much and so naturally a part of the scene and one of the company. She was so emphatically not one of them, save by the merest accident and for an evening's span. The sense of difference and distance troubled her. She thought of Cecily alone at home, and grew more troubled still. She felt absurd too, because she had been trying to help Harry. If that had to be done, she supposed Lady Flora ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... team hauling a cart laden with a printing press and a printer's outfit; following that are other ox teams hauling carts laden with tents and bedding, household goods, lumber, and provisions. A four-horse team hauling merchandise, and a span of mules hitched to a spring wagon come crashing up through the timber by the stream. Men and women are walking beside the oxen or the teams and are riding in the covered wagons. They are eagerly seeking something. It is the equality of opportunity that is supposed ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... indicates that a life membership in the society is almost an assurance that you will prolong your days. A list of deaths in the life membership roll published year by year would indicate that our life members are going to be with us far beyond the average span of human life. Since publishing a list of new life members in the February Horticulturist, there have been added to this life list five names: Tosten E. Dybdal, Elbow Lake, Minn.; Gust Carlson, Excelsior; A.N. Gray, Deerwood; ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... away. Eight or ten small boys—for by now the troupe had grown in number and in volume of noise—trailed along, keeping step with their elderly patron and advising him shrilly regarding the management of his refractory span. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... but seen you my son's before I left the world! Yet, alas! our time here is so short that it matters little whether it be spent in joy or grief, provided it be spent in innocence and virtue. Mine has been a long life compared to many; but when I look back upon it, what a span it seems! And it is not the remembrance of its brightest days that are now a solace to my heart. Dearest Mary, if you live long, you will live to think of the sad hours you have given me, as the fairest, of perhaps, of many a happy ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... the span of the Coupee. How fervently he wished them three thousand—ay, three million! For every step accorded him a throb, and heart-throbs such as these are among ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... land of generalities. I cannot tell you how often we have planned our arrival at the Monument: two nights ago, the 12th January, we had it all planned out, arrived in the lights and whirl of Waterloo, hailed a hansom, span up Waterloo Road, over the bridge, etc. etc., and hailed the Monument gate in triumph and with indescribable delight. My dear Custodian, I always think we are too sparing of assurances: Cordelia is only to be excused by Regan and Goneril in the same nursery; I wish to tell you that the longer ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a whistle or drummin' a can, Seein' how far wi' his fingers can span: Breakin' a window wi' throwin' a stone, Then ligs it on Tommy, or Charley, or Jone; Mockin' a weaver when swingin' his spooils, Chief-engineer of a train made o' stooils; Last out o' bed, an' last in at neet— O! he's a imp ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... end as I began, as life begins and ends—with a woman. In a woman's arms we enter life; in a woman's arms we get the courage and strength to bear it; in a woman's arms we leave it. And as for the span between—the business, profession, career—how colorless, how meaningless it would ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... plough, the loom, and the forge, are introduced on the banks of the Volga, the Oby, and the Lena; and the fiercest of the Tartar hordes have been taught to tremble and obey. The reign of independent Barbarism is now contracted to a narrow span; and the remnant of Calmucks or Uzbecks, whose forces may be almost numbered, cannot seriously excite the apprehensions of the great republic of Europe. [6000] Yet this apparent security should not tempt us to forget, that new enemies, and unknown dangers, may possibly arise ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... of one righteous man, The Church, our Zoar, shall abide, Till she abuse, so sore, her lengthened span, E'en Mercy's self her face must hide. Then, onward yet a step, thou hard-won soul; Though in the Church thou know thy place, The mountain farther lies—there seek thy goal, There breathe at large, ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble

... Man delved, and built, and span; Then wandered South and West The peoples Aryan, I journeyed in their van; The Semites, too, confessed,— From Beersheba to Dan,— ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... ended we could only judge by Boer movements. From Observation Hill I saw their ambulance waggons trekking heavy across the plain behind Rifleman's Ridge, then a bigger waggon, uncovered, drawn by a large span of oxen. There may have been a long gun in that waggon, its movements were so slow and cumbersome. Two ambulance waggons passed in the opposite direction, light and moving at ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse

... that very reason, it may be half an eternity before the great circle of its scheme shall bring us the superabundant recompense for all these sorrows! But what the lover asked was such prompt consolation as might consist with the brief span of mortal life; the assurance of Hilda's present safety, and her restoration within that ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... though neither his profession nor his practice testify so much; he whose mind is possessed with prejudicate opinions against the truth, when convincing light is holden forth to him, looketh asquint, and therefore goeth awry; the pragmatical adiaphorist, with his span-broad faith and ell-broad conscience, doth no small harm—the poor pandect of his plagiary profession in matters of faith reckoneth little for all, and in matters of practice all for little. Shortly, if an expurgatory ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... in a former generation was changing to a public restaurant. A suspension bridge cobwebbed itself across the Schuylkill where that audacious arch used to leap the river at a single bound,—an arch of greater span, as they loved to tell us, than was ever before constructed. The Upper Ferry Bridge was to the Schuylkill what the Colossus was to the harbor of Rhodes. It had an air of dash about it which went far towards redeeming the dead level of respectable average which ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... personal touch, he had discouraged his agent and the farmers from coming to the conference, and passed the gate with the braced-up feeling of one who goes to an encounter. In that very spick-and-span farmyard ducks were swimming leisurely on the greenish pond, white pigeons strutting and preening on the eaves of the barn, and his keen eye noted that some tiles were out of order up there. Four o'clock! Ah, here was a fellow coming! And instinctively he crisped his hands ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the suggestion of a home. The two brothers reentered the dug-out, and the men led their horses down to the creek for a drink. A span of poor old mules stood inside a wooden corral, a rickety wagon and a few rusty farming implements were scattered about, while over all the homestead was the blight of a ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams

... into squares of 1 foot, so that there will be 8 feet between each column or pilaster, supposing we make them to stand on a square foot. Draw the first archway EKF facing us, and its inner semicircle gh, with also its thickness or depth of 1 foot. Draw the span of the archway EF, then central line PO to point of sight. Proceed to raise as many other arches as required at the given distances. The intersections of the central line with the chords mn, &c., will give the centres from which to ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey

... boughs; here you have all the fragrance of the briny ocean, mingling with the scent of a bank of violets, and wrapping the senses in Elysium; here you may never tire of an existence that presents never-ending charms, and that, in the full enjoyment of which, you may live far beyond the allotted span ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... feature is that of the mill floors, which should be laid on beams, generally of Southern pine, 12 x 14 inches, or two inches larger when required by unusual loads or longer span than twenty-two feet. These beams are placed from eight to ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various

... stairs with a lagging step. How brightly the afternoon sun had shone on Reggie, his fair, smooth hair, vivid necktie, the flower in his coat. How the brass harness had glittered, and Black Michael's satin coat had shone; how spick and span was Odgers, the groom, in his green and buff livery; what an air of wealth and well-being ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... have made no gain. It may be doubted if the professors, on the whole, rank quite so high to-day for originality and vigor of research as did their predecessors forty years ago. Wherein lies the secret, then, of this wonderful change wrought in the brief span of two generations, between 1770 and 1830, and amid the dire confusion of the great Revolution and the Napoleonic era? The change was twofold. It consisted, first, in allowing to the professor the free play of his individuality; second, in providing him with a properly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... length, the western bay being the shorter. In the latter the arches which support its roof are, to the east and west, semicircular, while those to north and south are roughly elliptical, springing from the same level and rising to the same height as the semicircular arches, but being of shorter span. These elliptical arches extend to the outer walls of the church, thus partaking of the character of short ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... the front room of the shanty. Four miles to the south, Ithaca, too, slept,—the wholesome sleep of a small country town, while Cayuga Lake gleamed and glistened in the moonlight, as if fairies were tumbling it with powdered fingers. Above both town and span of water, Cornell University loomed darkly on the hill, the natural skyline sharply cut by its towers ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... Hetty Freeman was known as one of the best housekeepers in Brewster, and no one had ever seen her looking other than "spick and span," as her husband often admiringly declared. Rose always said that she could tell just what part of the big house Aunt Hetty was in because she could hear her starched skirts rattle; and she realized that Anne's untidy appearance was a real trouble ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis

... colossal span of the mighty bridge; then for a little while Liberty towers above our passing,—seeming first to turn towards us, then to turn away from us, the solemn beauty of her passionless face of bronze. Tints brighten;—the heaven is growing a little ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... she is, and scorns to pass for more Well—be it so—let vile dissemblers hold Unenvied power, and boast their dear-bought gold; 340 Me neither power shall tempt, nor thirst of pelf, To flatter others, or deny myself; Might the whole world be placed within my span, I would not be that thing, that prudent man. What! cries Sir Pliant, would you then oppose Yourself, alone, against a host of foes? Let not conceit, and peevish lust to rail, Above all sense of interest prevail. Throw off, for shame! this petulance of ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... point on the route. One of the largest Customs stations in the province of Yuen-nan is here situated at the east end of a one-span suspension bridge, about one hundred and fifty feet in length. No ponies carrying loads are allowed to cross the bridge, the roads east of this being unfit for beasts of burden. There is then a fearful climb to a place called Teo-sha-kwan, ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... sails. The stars, each one, do seem to pause, affixed To the ethereal caverns, though they all Forever are in motion, rising out And thence revisiting their far descents When they have measured with their bodies bright The span of heaven. And likewise sun and moon Seem biding in a roadstead,—objects which, As plain fact proves, are really borne along. Between two mountains far away aloft From midst the whirl of waters open lies ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... your liver, that's the acid on a man, For it tries his hones, and seeks his marrow throngh. You have got the thought to comfort you that life is but a span, If Fritz squirts his loathly limelight ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... Shakespeare (who died, of his own fruition, at the age of fifty-two, yet lived more than fifty thousand men, within his little span of life), when all the while I ought to be riding as hard as I can to Dulverton. But, to tell the truth, I could not ride hard, being held at every turn, and often without any turn at all, by the beauty ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... recommended by MR. G. SHADBOLT, both sides of the ass would be visible; both the boy's legs; and the drum would have two heads. This would be untrue, absurd, ridiculous, and quite as wonderful as Mr. Fenton's twelve-feet span ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various

... determined to surround the hill and the river bank near it with a wall, so that it might never be possible for an enemy to destroy the mills, and crossing the river, to carry on operations with ease against the circuit-wall of the city. So they decided to span the river at this point with a bridge, and to attach it to the wall; and by building many houses in the district across the river they caused the stream of the Tiber to be in the middle of the city. So ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius

... house. Why, the best folks in town mostly does their own work; there's Mrs. Reid, so rich, just has a woman to do the charing; and Eelan—that's the beauty, you know—makes the pies and keeps the house spick-and-span. But you couldn't keep your own house clean, could you, sir?—let alone the meals; and you wouldn't live ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... the board of health has been most commendable in this case. Beginning with a wager over the telephone that they would break quarantine in twenty-four hours, and ending with the attempt to span a twelve-foot gulf with a board, over which to cross to freedom, these shut-in society folk have shown characteristic disregard of the laws of the state. It is quite time to extend to the millionaire the same strictness that keeps the commuter at home for three weeks with the measles; that makes ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the dim lines of a road which ascended from the valley upon the further mountain, now scarcely visible because of the vegetation which grew luxuriantly on the hillsides, and he studied this approach to the castle most attentively—the straight reach of wall, built to span a branch of the gorge beyond, perhaps two hundred feet deep and six hundred wide. This was the main entrance to the castle, a narrow causeway, that terminated at the gate where he marked a drawbridge now raised, which hung by chains to the ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... left of Hovig after this span of time to be particularly offensive. The generator lay in a lower corner, half buried under other molded and unrecognizable debris. Dasinger uncovered it, feeling as if he were drowning in the invisible ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz

... nothing can disturb me; and it is high time for me to be considering what I am to make of the remainder of my days. Too many of them have been wasted, too great a portion of my span has been sacrificed to vanities. One must not forget one is in a fair way to become a grandfather; it is plainly an urgent duty to reconcile oneself to that estate and cultivate its proper gravity and decorum. Yet a little ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... the form of the roof, all point to an origin in some southern forest-clad country, and strikingly corroborate the view derived from philology, that Greece was colonised from north-western India. But to erect columns and span them with huge blocks of stone, or marble, is not an act of reason, but one of pure unreasoning imitation. The arch is the only true and reasonable mode of covering over wide spaces with stone, and therefore, ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... with my partner at night talking of the start the next day, I began to feel not a fear but a certain respect for that narrow little path which was not an arm's span in width, but which was nearly eight hundred miles in length. "From this point, Burton, it is business. Our practice ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... and pure, should move O'er rifts of ruin deep and wide, When her hands should span with lasting love The chasms rent by ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... Torley, and him they loved with an excess of tenderness and affection that could scarcely be blamed. The boy was handsome and manly, full of feeling, and possessed of great resolution and courage; all this, however, was ultimately of no avail in adding to the span of the poor youth's life. One day in the beginning of autumn, he overloaded himself with a log of fir which he had found in the moors; having laid it down to rest, he broke a blood-vessel in attempting to raise it to his shoulder the second time: he staggered home, related the accident as it had ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... on the old theory, recently developed before the Hellenic Society by Mr. JAY HAMBRIDGE, that certain formulae of proportions found in nature—notably in the normal ratio between a man's height and the span of his outstretched arms (2: [**square root] 5)—constituted the basis of symmetry in the art of the Greeks and, earlier, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various

... and brass twinkle and wink in bright and shining splendour. The ropes of the traces—the last touch of pride in perfection this, surely—are scrubbed and whitened. The whole battery is as spick and span, as complete and immaculate, as if it were waiting to walk into the arena at the Naval and Military Tournament. Such scrupulous perfection on active service sounds perhaps unnecessary or even extravagant. But the teams, ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable

... lay before them checkered off into squares by the irrigation ditches, level as a table. The long rows of cotton were five to ten inches high, and of a dark green colour. The stand on most of the fields was almost perfect. One Chinaman with a span of ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

... increasing use of radioisotopes to improve manufacturing, testing, and crop-raising. Atomic energy has improved the ability of the healing professions to combat disease, and holds promise for an eventual increase in man's life span. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower

... ridin' peaceful as could be to Spanish Falls. What do you mean by sayin' that, Jim Conley? But wait a minute! How does it happen that they were up near your dad's house? That certainly ain't on the road to Span—" ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... Lafontaine put on her kindliest smile as ushered in by the maid Mr. John C. Bedelle came magnificently into the room, spick and span, cool as the cucumber is credited to be at any temperature; an immaculate purple tie blooming under an unsullied collar, with only a slight pollen on the carefully-divided hair. How was she to know that, in five minutes, under the sting ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... Company. Here I got a fresh direction for Pilrig, my destination; and a little beyond, on the wayside, came by a gibbet and two men hanged in chains. They were dipped in tar, as the manner is; the wind span them, the chains clattered, and the birds hung about the uncanny jumping-jacks and cried. The sight coming on me suddenly, like an illustration of my fears, I could scarce be done with examining it and drinking in discomfort. And as I thus turned and turned about ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... rare August afternoon, were at the flag station to meet the "Wanderer"—the banker's private car, with a spick-and-span three-seated buckboard and a fast team of bays. Aboard the car were Alice and Margaret, Blakeman ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... always the whitest of doublets and a spotless apron, that denoted rather the miller, than the baker, he let bring, every morning about the hour that he expected Messer Geri and the ambassadors to pass by his door, a spick-and-span bucket of fresh and cool spring water, and a small Bolognese flagon of his good white wine, and two beakers that shone like silver, so bright were they: and there down he sat him, as they came by, and after hawking once or twice, fell a drinking ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... Sophistry! in these behold the tools,[ca] The broken tools, that Tyrants cast away By myriads, when they dare to pave their way With human hearts—to what?—a dream alone. Can Despots compass aught that hails their sway?[cb] Or call with truth one span of earth their own, Save that wherein at last ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... fashionable life bore him far away from labour and thought. His work grew cold and colourless; and he betook himself with indifference to the reproduction of monotonous, well-worn forms. The eternally spick-and-span uniforms, and the so-to-speak buttoned-up faces of the government officials, soldiers, and statesmen, did not offer a wide field for his brush: it forgot how to render superb draperies and powerful emotion and passion. ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... short the span of human pride! Time flies, and hope's romantic schemes, are undone; Cosweller's coach, that carries four inside, Waits to take back the unwilling ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas



Words linked to "Span" :   call, duration, viaduct, cover, trestle, structure, doubleton, transportation system, transit, put option, deuce, steel arch bridge, flyover, cantilever bridge, continue, lift bridge, movement, toll bridge, truss bridge, pedestrian bridge, drawbridge, covered bridge, trestle bridge, distance, Bailey bridge, cattle grid, extend, bateau bridge, suspension bridge, pier, linear measure, continuance, rope bridge, 2, construction, arch, overpass, move, footbridge, floating bridge, fellow, call option, mate, ii, linear unit, two, cattle guard, transportation, overcrossing, pontoon bridge, put, motion, motility



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