couple vs span

couple

noun
  • A small number. 

  • That which joins or links two things together; a bond or tie; a coupler. 

  • A couple-close. 

  • Two partners in a romantic or sexual relationship. 

  • One of the pairs of plates of two metals which compose a voltaic battery, called a voltaic couple or galvanic couple. 

  • Two of the same kind connected or considered together. 

  • A turning effect created by forces that sum to zero in magnitude but produce a non-zero external torque. 

det
  • Two or a few, a small number of. 

verb
  • To cause (two animals) to copulate, to bring (two animals) together for mating. 

  • To join in sexual intercourse; to copulate. 

  • To join (two things) together, or (one thing) to (another). 

adj
  • Two or (a) small number of. 

span

noun
  • A small space or a brief portion of time. 

  • The space of all linear combinations of something. 

  • A portion of something by length; a subsequence. 

  • 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. 

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

  • To fetter, as a horse; to hobble. 

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