space
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English
Etymology
From Middle English space, from Anglo-Norman space, variant of espace, espas et al., and spaze, variant of espace, from Latin spatium, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peh₂- (“to stretch, to pull”).
Pronunciation
Noun
space (countable and uncountable, plural spaces)
- (heading) Unlimited or generalized extent, physical or otherwise.
- Distance between things.
- Synonyms: break, gap; see also Thesaurus:interspace
- c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 347, column 2:
- But neere him, thy Angell / Becomes a feare: as being o're-powr'd, therefore / Make ſpace enough betweene you.
- 2001 November 3, Sam Wollaston, “Russian around”, in The Guardian:
- Which means that for every car there was 10 years ago, there are now 40. Which means - and this is my own, not totally scientific, calculation - that the space between cars on the roads in 1991 was roughly 39 car lengths, because today there is no space at all.
- Physical extent across two or three dimensions (sometimes for or to do something).
- c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 364, column 1:
- O God, I could be bounded in a nutſhell, and / count my ſelfe a King of infinite ſpace; were it not that / I haue bad dreames.
- Physical extent in all directions, seen as an attribute of the universe (now usually considered as a part of space-time), or a mathematical model of this.
- 1656, Thomas Hobbes, Elements of Philosophy, section II:
- Space is the Phantasme of a Thing existing without the Mind simply.
- 1880 August, Popular Science:
- These are not questions which can be decided by reference to our space intuitions, for our intuitions are confined to Euclidean space, and even there are insufficient, approximative.
- 2007 April 15, Anushka Asthana, David Smith, The Observer:
- The early results from Gravity Probe B, one of Nasa's most complicated satellites, confirmed yesterday 'to a precision of better than 1 per cent' the assertion Einstein made 90 years ago - that an object such as the Earth does indeed distort the fabric of space and time.
- The near-vacuum in which planets, stars and other celestial objects are situated; the universe beyond the earth's atmosphere.
- Synonym: outer space
- the first man in space
- 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker ; nd by Robert Boulter ; nd Matthias Walker, , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC, lines 86–90:
- How firſt began this Heav'n which we behold / Diſtant ſo high, with moving Fires adornd / Innumerable, and this which yeelds or fills / All ſpace, the ambient Aire wide interfus'd / Imbracing round this florid Earth, […]
- 1900 December – 1901 August, H G Wells, The First Men in the Moon, London: George Newnes, , published 1901, →OCLC:
- After all, to go into outer space is not so much worse, if at all, than a polar expedition.
- 2010 August 9, Stephen Hawking, quotee, “Stephen Hawking: mankind must colonise space or die out”, in The Guardian:
- The human race must colonise space within the next two centuries or it will become extinct, Stephen Hawking warned today.
- The physical and psychological area one needs within which to live or operate; personal freedom.
- 1996, Linda Brodkey, Writing Permitted in Designated Areas Only:
- Around the time of my parents' divorce, I learned that reading could also give me space.
- 2008, Jimmy Treigle, Walking on Water:
- "I care about you Billy, whether you believe it or not; but right now I need my space."
- Distance between things.
- (heading) Of time.
- (now rare, archaic) Free time; leisure, opportunity.
- Synonyms: leisure time, spare time
- c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 245, column 2:
- Come on, thou are granted ſpace.
- 1793, Henry Boyd, “The Royal Message”, in Poems, Dublin: Graisberry and Campbell, page 408:
- In two days hence / The Judge of life and death aſcends his ſeat. / —This will afford him ſpace to reach the camp […].
- A specific (specified) period of time.
- Synonyms: duration, span; see also Thesaurus:period
- 1893, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, Giles Corey:
- I pray you, sirs, to take some cheers the while I go for a moment's space to my poor afflicted child.
- 2011 September 29, Jon Smith, “Tottenham 3-1 Shamrock Rovers”, in BBC Sport:
- But their lead lasted just 10 minutes before Roman Pavlyuchenko and Jermain Defoe both headed home in the space of two minutes to wrestle back control.
- An undefined period of time (without qualifier, especially a short period); a while.
- Synonyms: spell, while; see also Thesaurus:uncertain period
- 1923 May 17, P G Wodehouse, “(please specify the page)”, in The Inimitable Jeeves, Harmondsworth, Middlesex : Penguin Books, published 1979, →ISBN:
- Even Comrade Butt cast off his gloom for a space and immersed his whole being in scrambled eggs.
- (now rare, archaic) Free time; leisure, opportunity.
- (heading) A bounded or specific extent, physical or otherwise.
- A (chiefly empty) area or volume with set limits or boundaries.
- 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, […]. Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been disposed to accord either.
- 2000, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender:
- The street door was open, and we entered a narrow space with washing facilities, curtained off from the courtyard.
- 2012 July 16, Charlotte Higgins, “Tate Modern unlocks Tanks – and introduces live art into mainstream”, in The Guardian:
- Converted from vast chambers beneath the old Bankside Power Station which once held a million gallons of oil, the new public areas consist of two large circular spaces for performances and film installations, plus a warren of smaller rooms.
- (music) A position on the staff or stave bounded by lines.
- 1849, Guillaume Louis Bocquillon-Wilhem, translated by John Pyke Hullah, Wilhelm's Method of Teaching Singing:
- The note next above Sol is La; La, therefore, stands in the 2nd space; Si, on the 3rd line, &c.
- 1990, Sammy Nzioki, Music Time:
- The lines and spaces of the staff are named according to the first seven letters of the alphabet, that is, A B C D E F G.
- A gap in text between words, lines etc., or a digital character used to create such a gap.
- Synonyms: blank, gap, (graphic design) whitespace
- Hypernym: punctuation mark
- 1992, Sam H Ham, Environmental Interpretation:
- According to experts, a single line of text should rarely exceed about 50 characters (including letters and all the spaces between words).
- 2005, Dr BR Kishore, Dynamic Business Letter Writing:
- It should be typed a space below the salutation : Dear Sir, Subject : Replacement of defective items.
- (letterpress typography) A piece of metal type used to separate words, cast lower than other type so as not to take ink, especially one that is narrower than one en (compare quad).
- 1683, Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the art of Printing., volume 2, pages 240–1:
- If it be only a Single Letter or two that drops, he thruſts the end of his Bodkin between every Letter of that Word, till he comes to a Space: and then perhaps by forcing thoſe Letters closer, he may have room to put in another Space or a Thin Space; which if he cannot do, and he finds the Space ſtand Looſe in the Form; he with the Point of his Bodkin picks the Space up and bows it a little; which bowing makes the Letters on each ſide of the Space keep their parallel diſtance; for by its Spring it thruſts the Letters that were cloſed with the end of the Bodkin to their adjunct Letters, that needed no cloſing.
- 1979, Marshall Lee, Bookmaking, page 110:
- Horizontal spacing is further divided into multiples and fractions of the em. The multiples are called quads. The fractions are called spaces.
- 2005, Phil Baines, Andrew Haslam, Type & Typography, 2nd edition, page 91:
- Other larger spaces – known as quads – were used to space out lines.
- A gap; an empty place.
- 2004, Harry M Benshoff, editor, Queer Cinéma:
- Mainstream Hollywood would not cater to the taste for sexual sensation, which left a space for B-movies, including noir.
- 2009, Barbara L. Lev, From Pink to Green:
- A horizontal scar filled the space on her chest where her right breast used to be.
- (geometry) A set of points, each of which is uniquely specified by a number (the dimensionality) of coordinates.
- (countable, mathematics) A generalized construct or set whose members have some property in common; typically there will be a geometric metaphor allowing these members to be viewed as "points". Often used with a restricting modifier describing the members (e.g. vector space), or indicating the inventor of the construct (e.g. Hilbert space).
- Functional analysis is best approached through a sound knowledge of Hilbert space theory.
- (countable, figuratively) A field, area, or sphere of activity or endeavour.
- innovation in the browser space
- 2020, Alexia Moncrieff, Expertise, Authority and Control, Cambridge University Press, page 187:
- hey became responsible for managing aspects of civilian labour in the medical space, and their roles were contrasted with those of the female physiotherapists in the hospital.
- Anything analogous to a physical space in which one can interact, such as an online chat room.
- 2007, Jacob van Kokswijk, Digital Ego: Social and Legal Aspects of Virtual Identity, page 88:
- Communication in Internet chat spaces allows participants to communicate so freely in the relative safety of anonymity that they forget their privacy.
- A (chiefly empty) area or volume with set limits or boundaries.
Hyponyms
- 2-em space
- 3-em space
- address space
- aerospace
- affine space
- air space
- airspace
- backspace
- Baire space
- Banach space
- base space
- blue space
- breathing space
- bunkspace
- chemical space
- column space
- compact space
- conjugate space
- connected space
- crawlspace
- crawl space
- cyberspace
- danger space
- dark space
- dead-air space
- dead space
- deep space
- drift space
- dual space
- Einstein space
- em space
- en space
- Euclidean space
- exceptional space
- exotic four-space
- fishing space
- flat space
- floor space
- Foch space
- Fourier space
- Fréchet space
- free space
- function space
- G space
- hair space
- half space
- Hausdorff space
- headspace
- Hilbert space
- homeomorphic space
- homogeneous space
- hydrospace
- hyperbolic space
- hyperspace
- image space
- inertial space
- inner product space
- interaction space
- interplanetary space
- interstellar space
- intervillous space
- isometric space
- joint space
- justifying space
- lacunary space
- Lindelöf space
- living space
- loading space
- locally ringed space
- mathematical space
- measurable space
- metacompact space
- metric space
- metrizable space
- Minkowski space
- Moore space
- mutton space
- namespace
- n-dimensional space
- normal space
- normed linear space
- n space
- null space
- NUT space
- object space
- open half space
- orbit space
- orthogonal space
- outer space
- paracompact space
- Pauli spin space
- Peano space
- perfectly separable space
- perivitelline space
- phase space
- Polish space
- popliteal space
- pore space
- probability space
- problem space
- projective space
- pseudospace
- quotient space
- reflexive Banach space
- regular space
- regular topological space
- Riemann space
- ringed space
- sample space
- separable space
- sequentially compact space
- shrinking space
- spin space
- state space
- strictly convex space
- subarachnoid space
- subspace
- symmetric space
- T0 space
- T1 space
- T3 space
- T4 space
- tangent space
- tensor space
- thick space
- thin space
- topological space
- total space
- triangulable space
- Tychonoff space
- uniform space
- unitary space
- vector space
- wave-vector space
- weakly complete space
- whitespace
- white space
- workspace
Derived terms
- 3-to-the-em space
- 5-em space
- 5-to-the-em space
- absolute space
- absolute space-time
- action space
- aerospace
- airspace
- alien space bats
- anchor space
- anti-de Sitter space
- anti-space
- baby space
- backspace
- Bloch space
- breathing-space
- bunkspace
- Calabi-Yau space
- Cartesian space
- Cauchy space
- Chebyshev space
- classifying space
- clearance space
- color space
- confined space
- counter-space
- covering space
- crash space
- crawlspace
- Crookes space
- cyberspace
- deep-space
- de Sitter space
- Destot's space
- double space
- double-space
- Eilenberg-MacLane space
- empty space
- Euclidian space
- factor space
- figure space
- floor-space
- floorspace
- Fock space
- four-space
- Fully Automated Luxury Queer Space Communism
- Haar space
- handicapped space
- hard space
- head space
- headspace
- head-space
- hold space
- H-space
- hydrospace
- hyperspace
- identification space
- ideographic space
- information space
- intercostal space
- interspace
- in the space of
- into space
- kernel space
- kick space
- Kolmogorov space
- latent space
- liminal space
- linear space
- little space
- Lp space
- measure space
- meat space
- meat-space
- multispace
- namespace
- near-space
- near space
- negative space
- no-break space
- non-breaking space
- non-space
- n-space
- open space
- other-space
- paraglottic space
- parallel dead space
- parking space
- personal space
- Poincaré space
- prehilbert space
- pre-Hilbert space
- projective Hilbert space
- pseudospace
- public space
- punctuation space
- pupillary space
- row space
- safe space
- search space
- Seifert fibered space
- Seifert fiber space
- Seifert fibred space
- Seifert fibre space
- shared space
- Sierpinski space
- single-space
- sober space
- Sobolev space
- space adaptation syndrome
- space age
- Space Age
- space agency
- space alien
- space attenuation
- space average
- space bar
- space-based
- space bear
- space biology
- space blanket
- spaceborne
- space-borne
- space bridge
- space buns
- space cadet
- space-cadet keyboard
- space cake
- space capsule
- space case
- space centrode
- space charge
- space cloth
- space communication
- space complexity
- space cone
- space coordinate
- spacecraft
- space current
- space curve
- space debris
- space defence
- space defense
- space disco
- space docking
- space dog
- space dot
- space dust
- space dyeing
- space elevator
- space environment
- space equivalent zone
- space exploration
- space factor
- spacefaring
- space-faring
- space-filling
- space-filling curve
- space-filling model
- space fixed reference
- space flight
- space force
- space frame
- spaceful
- space group
- space guidance
- space gun
- space-happy
- space heater
- space heating
- space helmet
- space herpes
- space hopper
- space ice cream
- space-invader
- space invader
- space junk
- space lattice
- space law
- spaceless
- spacelike
- space-like
- space line
- space-lore
- spacely
- spaceman
- space marine
- space medicine
- space mission
- space motion
- space nation
- space navigation
- space of Destot
- space of Disse
- space opera
- space-operatic
- space out
- space perception
- space permeability
- space polar coordinate
- spaceport
- space power system
- space probe
- space processing
- space programme, space program
- space quadrature
- space quantization
- spacer
- space race
- space reconnaissance
- space reddening
- space request
- space research
- space roar
- space rock
- space rocket
- space rule
- space satellite
- space-saving
- space science
- space sexology
- spaceship
- space ship
- space shuttle
- space sickness
- space simulator
- space station
- space suit
- space suppression
- space technology
- space-time
- space-time crystal
- space-time trade-off
- space tourism
- space tourist
- space travel
- space vehicle
- space velocity
- space vessel
- space walk
- spaceward
- space wave
- space weapon
- space weather
- space work
- space writer
- spacey
- spacial
- spoiler space
- stare into space
- Stone space
- subdural space
- subspace
- sunspace
- swap space
- Talairach space
- Teichmüller space
- third space
- three-space
- time parameter space
- time-space
- time-space complexity
- time-space compression
- time-space convergence
- time-space grid
- topological space
- Traube's space
- Triebel-Lizorkin space
- u-space
- Virchow-Robin space
- visual space
- vowel space
- warm space
- waste of space
- watch this space
- whitespace
- word space
- Zariski-Riemann space
- Zariski space
- zero-width space
Translations
interval of time
|
while — see while
physical extent in two or three dimensions
|
area beyond atmosphere of planets
|
personal freedom
|
bounded or specific physical extent
|
gap between written characters, lines etc.
|
a gap, an empty place
|
piece of type used to separate words
|
music: position on the staff
geometry: set of points
|
mathematics: generalized construct or set
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
See also
- apostrophe ( ' ) ( ’ )
- curly brackets or braces (US) ( { } )
- square brackets or brackets (US) ( [ ] )
- colon ( : )
- comma ( , )
- dashes ( ‒ ) ( – ) ( — ) ( ― )
- ellipsis ( … )
- exclamation mark ( ! )
- fraction slash ( ⁄ )
- guillemets ( « » ) ( ‹ › )
- hyphen ( - ) ( ‐ )
- interpunct ( · )
- interrobang (rare) ( ‽ )
- brackets or parentheses (US, Canada) ( ( ) )
- full stop or period (US, Canada) ( . )
- question mark ( ? )
- quotation marks (formal) ( ‘ ’ ‚ ) ( “ ” „ )
- quotation marks (informal, computing) ( " ) ( ' )
- semicolon ( ; )
- slash or stroke (UK) ( / )
- space ( ] [ )
Verb
space (third-person singular simple present spaces, present participle spacing, simple past and past participle spaced)
- (obsolete, intransitive) To roam, walk, wander.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.ii:
- But she as Fayes are wont, in priuie place / Did spend her dayes, and lov'd in forests wyld to space.
- (transitive) To set some distance apart.
- Faye had spaced the pots at 8-inch intervals on the windowsill.
- The cities are evenly spaced.
- To insert or utilise spaces in a written text.
- This paragraph seems badly spaced.
- To space out (become distracted, lose focus).
- 1986 August 16, “Happy Birthday Doo (personal advertisement)”, in Gay Community News, volume 14, number 5, page 13:
- My sprout, like I'm totally spaced over you and besides I like older women (arh-arh). I love you...
- (transitive, science fiction) To kill (someone) by ejection into outer space, usually without a space suit.
- The captain spaced the traitors.
- 1952, Robert A. Heinlein, The Rolling Stones:
- Sound effect of blow with blunt instrument, groan, and the unmistakable cycling of an air lock—Castor: "Sorry, folks. My assistant has just spaced Mr. Rudolf. […] "
- 1995, J. Michael Straczynski, And Now for a Word (Babylon 5), season 2, episode 15, spoken by Dr. Stephen Franklin (Richard Biggs):
- A lot of people make jokes about spacing somebody, about shoving somebody out an airlock. I don't think it's funny. Never will.
- (intransitive, science fiction) To travel into and through outer space.
- 1947 January, Bernard I. Kahn, “Command”, in Astounding Science Fiction, volume 38, number 5:
- He well remembered, when he was a junior officer, how the sight of a well dressed, impeccably neat commanding officer, no matter how long they had been spacing, maintained the enthusiasm, confidence and morale of the officers and men.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
to set some distance apart
|
to eject into outer space
|
Anagrams
Old French
Noun
space oblique singular, m (oblique plural spaces, nominative singular spaces, nominative plural space)
- Alternative form of espace