Anchura

Anchura is a term in the Spanish language that denotes the measurement of how wide something is, i.e., the extent from one side to the opposite side in a direction perpendicular to its length. It is commonly translated into English as width or breadth. In everyday language, anchura is used to describe the dimensions of objects, spaces, or surfaces, such as the anchura of a door, a room, or a page.

In measurement practice, anchura is expressed in units of length, such as meters, centimeters, or inches. It is often considered together with length and height to specify the overall size of an object. In many contexts of geometry and carpentry, anchura is the horizontal dimension for rectangular objects, while altura or longitud refer to vertical or longitudinal extents; however, usage can vary by region and field.

In mathematics, width can be defined more generally. For a convex body K in the plane, the width in a given direction u is the distance between the two parallel lines perpendicular to u that support K. Equivalently, it is the difference between the maximum and minimum projection of K onto the line in the direction u. The minimal width over all directions is the minimal width; the mean or average width is a related measure of a body's shape.

Applications of anchura include design, architecture, geography, and cartography, where precise width measurements are essential for fit, capacity, and layout. In digital media, terms like screen width or image width describe the horizontal dimension of a display area or graphic. Regional usage may prefer synonyms such as ancho or amplitud, but anchura remains the standard noun for width in Spanish.

See also: ancho; breadth; width.