Spanned

Spanned is the past tense and past participle of the verb span. To span means to extend across a distance or period of time, or to lie across from one side to another. When a structure, space, or interval spans something, it covers or includes it.

Origin and form: The verb span derives from Old English and related Germanic words associated with distance. The form spanned is used for completed actions: for example, “The bridge spanned the river” or “The project spanned five years.” Spanned can also appear in passive constructions or descriptive phrases to indicate coverage or extent.

Usage: Common in physical contexts, spanned describes bridges, arches, or other structures that reach across a feature. In time or scope, it signals coverage of a duration or range, as in “The study spanned several decades” or “The data spans multiple categories.” In computing and design, “spanned” may describe elements that extend across multiple grid columns or rows, such as a grid item that is spanned across two columns.

Notes: Spanned emphasizes the extent across a continuous space or interval. It is typically used with verbs and prepositional phrases such as “spans from X to Y” or “spanned the century,” and is common in technical, architectural, scholarly, and design contexts.