range

Etymology

From Middle English rengen, from Old French rengier (“to range, to rank, to order,”), from the noun renc, reng, ranc, rang (“a rank, row”), from Frankish *hring, from Proto-Germanic *hringaz (“ring, circle, curve”).

noun

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.
3. Selection, array.
   We sell a wide range of cars.
   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. 2013-07-19, 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.
   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.
7. The maximum distance or reach of capability (of a weapon, radio, detector, etc.).
   This missile's range is 500 kilometres.
8. The distance a vehicle (e.g., a car, bicycle, lorry, or aircraft) can travel without refueling.
   This aircraft's range is 15 000 kilometres.
9. An area of open, often unfenced, grazing land.
10. The extent or space taken in by anything excursive; compass or extent of excursion; reach; scope.
    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. 1711-12-22, 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.
    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 values specified by an 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.
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.
    , "Taking Pleasure in Other Men's Sins" He 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 variety of roles that an actor can play in a satisfactory way.
    By playing in comedies as well as in dramas he has proved his range as an actor.
    By playing in comedies as well as in dramas he has proved his acting range.

verb

1. (intransitive) To travel over (an area, etc); to roam, wander.
2. (transitive) To rove over or through.
   to range the fields
   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.
4. (transitive) To bring (something) into a specified position or relationship (especially, of opposition) with something else.
5. (intransitive) Of a variable, to be able to take any of the values in a specified range.
   The variable x ranges over all real values from 0 to 10.
   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
6. (transitive) To classify.
   to range plants and animals in genera and species
   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.
   The front of a house ranges with the street.
   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.
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.
   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.
11. (biology) To be native to, or live in, a certain district or region.
    The peba ranges from Texas to Paraguay.
12. (military, of artillery) To determine the range to a target.
13. To sail or pass in a direction parallel to or near.
    to range the coast
14. (baseball) Of a player, to travel a significant distance for a defensive play.
    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