quad vs span

quad

verb
  • To fill spaces in a line of type with quads. Also quad out. 

  • To twist four individually insulated conductors together as two pairs of twisted wires that are then twisted together. 

  • To align text with the left or right margin, or centre it. 

  • to ride a quad bike 

adj
  • Of or relating to quads. 

  • Having four shots of espresso. 

noun
  • A quadriplegic person. 

  • A skate with four wheels. 

  • A quadcopter. 

  • A blank metal block used to fill short lines of type. 

  • A keyboard command which aligns text with the left or right margin, or centred between them. In combination, as quad left, quad right, or quad centre. 

  • A kind of round-robin tournament between four players, where each participant plays every other participant once. 

  • Quadruplex videotape. 

  • The quadriceps muscle. 

  • A quadrupel beer. 

  • A quad bike (from quadricycle) 

  • The Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price bound in a single volume. 

  • A quadruplet (infant). 

  • A quadrangle (quadrangular courtyard). 

  • A serving of four shots of espresso. 

  • A quadrilateral. 

  • A joke used to fill long days of setting type. 

  • A poster, measuring forty by thirty inches, advertising a cinematic film release. 

span

verb
  • To generate an entire space by means of linear combinations. 

  • To extend through the distance between or across. 

  • To extend through (a time period). 

  • To measure by the span of the hand with the fingers extended, or with the fingers encompassing the object. 

  • To fetter, as a horse; to hobble. 

noun
  • The space of all linear combinations of something. 

  • A portion of something by length; a subsequence. 

  • A small space or a brief portion of time. 

  • 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 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. 

  • wingspan of a plane or bird 

  • The length of a cable, wire, rope, chain between two consecutive supports. 

  • Any of various traditional units of length approximating this distance, especially the English handspan of 9 inches forming ⅛ fathom and equivalent to 22.86 cm. 

  • A pair of horses or other animals driven together; usually, such a pair of horses when similar in color, form, and action. 

  • 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. 

  • The full width of an open hand from the end of the thumb to the end of the little finger used as an informal unit of length. 

How often have the words quad and span occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )