reach vs span

reach

verb
  • To extend in dimension, time etc.; to stretch out continuously (past, beyond, above, from etc. something). 

  • To continue living until or up to (a certain age). 

  • To arrive at a particular destination. 

  • To stretch out the hand. 

  • To arrive at a particular destination, especially to join someone; to meet up. 

  • To strain after something; to make (sometimes futile or pretentious) efforts. 

  • To extend to; to stretch out as far as; to touch by virtue of extent. 

  • To make contact with. 

  • To connect with (someone) on an emotional level, making them receptive of (one); to get through to (someone). 

  • To sail on the wind, as from one point of tacking to another, or with the wind nearly abeam. 

  • To arrive at (a place) by effort of any kind. 

  • To attain or obtain by stretching forth the hand; to extend some part of the body, or something held, so as to touch, strike, grasp, etc. 

  • To extend an action, effort, or influence to; to penetrate to; to pierce, or cut. 

  • To strike or touch. 

  • To give to someone by stretching out a limb, especially the hand; to give with the hand; to pass to another person; to hand over. 

  • To extend, stretch, or thrust out (for example a limb or object held in the hand). 

noun
  • The act of stretching or extending; extension. 

  • A stretch of a watercourse which can be sailed in one reach (in the previous sense). An extended portion of water; a stretch; a straightish portion of a stream, river, or arm of the sea extending up into the land, as from one turn to another. By extension, the adjacent land. 

  • An extended portion or area of land or water. 

  • Extent; stretch; expanse; hence, application; influence; result; scope. 

  • Any point of sail in which the wind comes from the side of a vessel, excluding close-hauled. 

  • The pole or rod connecting the rear axle with the forward bolster of a wagon. 

  • A level stretch of a watercourse, as between rapids in a river or locks in a canal. (examples?) 

  • The power of stretching out or extending action, influence, or the like; power of attainment or management; extent of force or capacity. 

  • The distance a boxer's arm can extend to land a blow. 

  • The distance traversed between tacks. 

  • The ability to reach or touch with the person, a limb, or something held or thrown. 

  • An exaggeration; an extension beyond evidence or normal; a stretch. 

span

verb
  • To extend through (a time period). 

  • To extend through the distance between or across. 

  • 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. 

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 reach and span occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )