Definition of "range"

range

/ɹeɪnd͡ʒ/

noun
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.
  Quotations
  Therein an hundred raunges weren pight, / And hundred fournaces all burning bright; / By euery fournace many feendes did byde, / Deformed creatures, horrible in ſight, / And euery feend his buſie paines applyde, / To melt the golden metall, ready to be tryde.
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, page 281
  There was juſt ſuch another Innocent as this, in my Fathers Family : He did the Courſe Work in the Kitchin, and was bid at his firſt Coming to take off the Range, and let down the Cynders before he went to Bed.
  1692, Roger L’Estrange, “[A Supplement of Fables […].] Fab[le] CCCCXXXVIII. A Fool and a Hot Iron.”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], page 415
3. Selection, array.
  Quotations
  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.
  2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion‎
  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.
  2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 18
4. An area for practicing shooting at targets.
5. An area for military training or equipment testing.
6. The distance from a person or sensor to an object, target, emanation, or event.
7. The maximum distance or reach of capability (of a weapon, radio, detector, etc.).
8. The distance a vehicle (e.g., a car, bicycle, lorry, or aircraft) can travel without refueling.
9. An area of open, often unfenced, grazing land.
  Quotations
  There is a young cowboy, he lives on the range / His horse and his cattle are his only companions
  1970, James Taylor (lyrics and music), “Sweet Baby James”, in Sweet Baby James
10. The extent or space taken in by anything excursive; compass or extent of excursion; reach; scope.
  Quotations
  As to acquir’d habits and abilities in Learning, his Writings having given the World ſufficient account of them, there remains onely to obſerve, that the range and compaſs of his knowledge fill’d the whole Circle of the Arts, and reach’d thoſe ſeverals which ſingle do exact an entire man unto themſelves, and full age.
  1661, John Fell, The Life of The most Learned, Reverend and Pious Dr H. Hammond, 2nd edition, London: J. Flesher, published 1662, page 99
  For we may further obſerve that men of the greateſt abilities are moſt fired with ambition : and that, on the contrary, mean and narrow minds are the leaſt actuated by it ; whether it be that a man’s ſenſe of his own incapacities makes him deſpair of coming at fame, or that he has not enough range of thought to look out for any good which does not more immediately relate to his intereſt or convenience, or that Providence, in the very frame of his ſoul, would not ſubject him to ſuch a paſſion as would be uſeleſs to the world, and a torment to himſelf.
  1711 December 22, Joseph Addison, “The Spectator”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, volume III, London: Jacob Tonson, published 1721, page 255
  Far as Creation’s ample range extends, / The ſcale of Senſual, Mental pow’rs aſcends : / Mark how it mounts, to Man’s imperial race, / From the green myriads in the peopled graſs !
  1733–34, Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, London: J. and P. Knapton, published 1748, epistle I, lines 207–210, page 29
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.
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 values specified by an iterator.
17. An aggregate of individuals in one rank or degree; an order; a class.
  Quotations
  The next Range of Beings above him are the pure and immaterial Intelligences , the next below him is the sensible Nature.
  a. 1677, Matthew Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature, London: […] William Godbid, for William Shrowsbery, […], published 1677
18. (obsolete) The step of a ladder; a rung.
  Quotations
  the first range of that ladder
  1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, “(please specify |book=I to XVI)”, in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed at the Theater, published 1707
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.
  Quotations
  He may take a range all the world over.
  1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, 6th edition, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] J[ames] Bettenham, for Jonah Bowyer, […], published 1727
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 variety of roles that an actor can play in a satisfactory way.
verb
third-person singular simple present ranges, present participle ranging, simple past and past participle ranged
1. (intransitive) To travel over (an area, etc); to roam, wander.
2. (transitive) To rove over or through.
  Quotations
  Teach him to range the ditch, and force the brake.
  1713, John Gay, Rural Sports
3. (obsolete, intransitive) To exercise the power of something over something else; to cause to submit to, over.
  Quotations
  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.
  1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 40, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […]
4. (transitive) To bring (something) into a specified position or relationship (especially, of opposition) with something else.
  Quotations
  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.
  1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 22”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley
  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.
  1910, Saki [pseudonym; Hector Hugh Munro], “The Bag”, in Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches, London: Methuen & Co. […], page 76
5. (intransitive) Of a variable, to be able to take any of the values in a specified range.
  Quotations
  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.
  2013 May-June, Kevin Heng, “Why Does Nature Form Exoplanets Easily?”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 184
  The 2025 timetable would feature two trains per hour, alternately routed via Kirkcaldy (with 11 intermediate stops) and Dunfermline (14 stops), with journey times ranging between 65 and 81 minutes.
  2023 November 1, Robert Drysdale, “Leven is nearly back on track...”, in RAIL, number 995, page 58
6. (transitive) To classify.
  Quotations
  The coins are ranged into nine classes.
  1785, William Coxe, Travels Into Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, page 129
  All requirements could be ranged into the classes.
  2013, Hubert Kals, Fred van Houten, Integration of Process Knowledge into Design Support, page 378
7. (intransitive) To form a line or a row.
  Quotations
  The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms, / Amidst the soundless solitudes immense / Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.
  1873, James Thomson (B.V.), The City of Dreadful Night
8. (intransitive) To be placed in order; to be ranked; to admit of arrangement or classification; to rank.
  Quotations
  And range with humble livers in content.
  1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene iii]
9. (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.
  Quotations
  Maccabeus ranged his army by hands.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Bible Maccabees/#12 2 Maccabees:12–20
  Were this dependence of the body and mind more studied, and its effects collected and ranged into proper order; no doubt, we would be able to form a better judgment of it, and see further into the good purposes to which it serves;
  1740, George Turnbull, The Principles of Moral Philosophy, page 77
10. (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.
  Quotations
  It would be absurd in me to range myself on the side of the Duke of Bedford and the corresponding society.
  1796, Edmund Burke, A Letter from the Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks Made upon Him and His Pension
11. (biology) To be native to, or live in, a certain district or region.
12. (military, of artillery) To determine the range to a target.
13. To sail or pass in a direction parallel to or near.
14. (baseball) Of a player, to travel a significant distance for a defensive play.
  Quotations
  Willie, playing in left-center, raced toward a ball no human had any business getting a glove to. Mays ranged to his left, searching, digging in, pouring on the speed, as the crowd screamed its anticipation of a triple.
  2009, Jason Aronoff, Going, Going ... Caught!: Baseball's Great Outfield Catches as Described by Those Who Saw Them, 1887-1964, page 250

Definition of "range"

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