Meaning & use
span control
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Meanings
noununcountabletechnical
The ability of a piece of equipment or software to determine or adjust the width or extent of something it handles.
Grammar: Uncountable in this sense: talk about span control as a feature, not 'a span control'.
Patterns
- span control over something
- give someone span control
The new monitor offers precise span control, so you can stretch the image to fill the whole screen.
Engineers added span control to the bridge software so the load could be spread across several supports.
nouncountabletechnical
A device, setting, or on-screen control that lets a user set how far something extends or reaches.
Grammar: Countable here: you can have one span control or several span controls on a panel.
Patterns
- adjust the span control
- a span control on something
Drag the span control at the top of the window to widen the table columns.
The mixing desk has a span control that sets the stereo width of each channel.
noununcountablecomputinginformal
In web design, the use of the HTML span element together with style rules to manage small sections of text.
Grammar: Uncountable and informal among developers; it names a technique rather than a thing.
Patterns
- use span control for something
- span control in HTML
She used span control to color just one word inside the paragraph.
Beginners often confuse span control with full block layout, but a span only covers inline content.
Common combinations
- precise span control
- The telescope's mount gives astronomers precise span control over the field of view.
- adjust the span control
- You may need to adjust the span control before printing the chart.
- span control setting
- Look for the span control setting in the display menu.
- lose span control
- If the signal drops, the system may lose span control and the image will freeze.
- span control over the layout
- CSS grid gives you span control over the layout of each column.
Synonyms and how they differ
- width control
- More general and used outside computing; it refers to any adjustment of how wide something is.
- range control
- Focuses on how far a value or signal reaches rather than on physical width.
Word family
- span noun
- The distance or period that something covers.
- span verb
- To stretch across or extend over something.
- controller noun
- A person or device that directs how something operates.
Commonly confused: span control or spanning control?
span control vs spanning control
This is not a standard term; 'spanning' is the -ing form of the verb 'span', while 'span control' is the fixed compound noun.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'span control' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Span control' is a noun, so it can be adjusted or set, as in option 1 (index 1). Option 0 wrongly uses it as a verb, option 2 uses a plural verb with a singular subject, and option 3 has a plural verb with 'control' as an uncountable noun.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “span control”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.