• Range

    Pronunciation

    • IPA: /ɹeɪndÊ’/

    Origin

    From Middle English rengen, from Old French renger ("range, rank, order, array"), from rang ("a rank, row"), from Old High German hring, hrinc, Middle High German rinc ("a ring").

    Full definition of range

    Noun

    range

    (plural ranges)
    1. A line or series of mountains, buildings, etc.
    2. A fireplace; a fire or other cooking apparatus; now specifically, a large cooking stove with many hotplates.
      • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.vii:Therein an hundred raunges weren pight,
        And hundred fornaces all burning bright;
      • L'EstrangeHe was bid at his first coming to take off the range, and let down the cinders.
    3. Selection, array.
      • 2006, Edwin Black, Internal Combustion Chapter 2, But through the oligopoly, charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries. By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal.
      • 2013-07-19, Timothy Garton Ash, Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli, Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.
    4. We sell a wide range of cars.
    5. An area for practicing shooting at targets.
    6. An area for military training or equipment testing.
    7. The distance from a person or sensor to an object, target, emanation, or event.
      We could see the ship at a range of five miles.
      One can use the speed of sound to estimate the range of a lightning flash.
    8. Maximum range of capability (of a weapon, radio, detector, fuel supply, etc.).
      This missile's range is 500 kilometres.
    9. An area of open, often unfenced, grazing land.
    10. Extent or space taken in by anything excursive; compass or extent of excursion; reach; scope.
      • Alexander PopeFar as creation's ample range extends.
      • Bishop FellThe range and compass of Hammond's knowledge filled the whole circle of the arts.
      • AddisonA man has not enough range of thought.
    11. (mathematics) The set of values (points) which a function can obtain.
    12. (statistics) The length of the smallest interval which contains all the data in a sample; the difference between the largest and smallest observations in the sample.
    13. (sports, baseball) The defensive area that a player can cover.
      Jones has good range for a big man.
    14. (music) The scale of all the tones a voice or an instrument can produce.
    15. (ecology) The geographical area or zone where a species is normally naturally found.
    16. (programming) A sequential list of iterators that are specified by a beginning and ending iterator.
      std::for_each  calls the given function on each value in the input range.
    17. An aggregate of individuals in one rank or degree; an order; a class.
      • Sir M. HaleThe next range of beings above him are the immaterial intelligences.
    18. (obsolete) The step of a ladder; a rung.
    19. (obsolete, UK, dialect) A bolting sieve to sift meal.
    20. A wandering or roving; a going to and fro; an excursion; a ramble; an expedition.
      • SouthHe may take a range all the world over.
    21. (US, historical) In the public land system, a row or line of townships lying between two succession meridian lines six miles apart.
    22. The scope of something, the extent which something covers or includes.

    Synonyms

    Antonyms

    • (values a function can obtain) domain

    Holonyms

    Derived terms

    Related terms

    Verb

    1. (intransitive) To travel over (an area, etc); to roam, wander. from 15th c.
    2. (transitive) To rove over or through.to range the fields
      • John GayTeach him to range the ditch, and force the brake.
    3. (obsolete, intransitive) To exercise the power of something over something else; to cause to submit to, over. 16th-19th c.
      • 1603, John Florio, trans. Michel de Montaigne, Essays, I.40:The soule is variable in all manner of formes, and rangeth to her selfe, and to her estate, whatsoever it be, the senses of the body, and all other accidents.
    4. (transitive) To bring (something) into a specified position or relationship (especially, of opposition) with something else. from 16th c.
      • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick,At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed no longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging alongside.
      • 1910, Saki, ‘The Bag’, Reginald in Russia:In ranging herself as a partisan on the side of Major Pallaby Mrs. Hoopington had been largely influenced by the fact that she had made up her mind to marry him at an early date.
    5. (intransitive) (mathematics, computing; followed by over) Of a variable, to be able to take any of the values in a specified range.
      • 2013, Kevin Heng, Why Does Nature Form Exoplanets Easily?, In the past two years, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has located nearly 3,000 exoplanet candidates ranging from sub-Earth-sized minions to gas giants that dwarf our own Jupiter. Their densities range from that of styrofoam to iron.
    6. The variable x ranges over all real values from 0 to 10.
    7. (transitive) To classify.to range plants and animals in genera and species
    8. (intransitive) To form a line or a row.The front of a house ranges with the street.
      • Drydenwhich way the forests range
      • 1873, James Thomson (B.V.), The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms,Amidst the soundless solitudes immenseOf ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.
    9. (intransitive) To be placed in order; to be ranked; to admit of arrangement or classification; to rank.
      • ShakespeareAnd range with humble livers in content.
    10. (transitive) To set in a row, or in rows; to place in a regular line or lines, or in ranks; to dispose in the proper order.
      • Bible, 2 Macc. xii. 20Maccabeus ranged his army by hands.
    11. (transitive) To place among others in a line, row, or order, as in the ranks of an army; usually, reflexively and figuratively, to espouse a cause, to join a party, etc.
      • BurkeIt would be absurd in me to range myself on the side of the Duke of Bedford and the corresponding society.
    12. (biology) To be native to, or live in, a certain district or region.The peba ranges from Texas to Paraguay.
    13. To separate into parts; to sift.
    14. To sail or pass in a direction parallel to or near.to range the coast

    Anagrams

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