space

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Mathematics A set of elements or points satisfying specified geometric postulates: non-Euclidean space.
2. n. The infinite extension of the three-dimensional region in which all matter exists.
3. n. The expanse in which the solar system, stars, and galaxies exist; the universe.
4. n. The region of this expanse beyond Earth's atmosphere.
5. n. An extent or expanse of a surface or three-dimensional area: Water covered a large space at the end of the valley.
6. n. A blank or empty area: the spaces between words.
7. n. An area provided for a particular purpose: a parking space.
8. n. Reserved or available accommodation on a public transportation vehicle.
9. n. A period or interval of time.
10. n. A little while: Let's rest for a space.
11. n. Sufficient freedom from external pressure to develop or explore one's needs, interests, and individuality: "The need for personal space inevitably asserts itself” ( Maggie Scarf).
12. n. Music One of the intervals between the lines of a staff.
13. n. Printing One of the blank pieces of type or other means used for separating words or characters.
14. n. One of the intervals during the telegraphic transmission of a message when the key is open or not in contact.
15. n. Blank sections in printed material or broadcast time available for use by advertisers.
16. v. To organize or arrange with spaces between.
17. v. To separate or keep apart.
18. v. Slang To stupefy or disorient from or as if from a drug. Often used with out: The antihistamine spaces me out so I can't think clearly.
19. v. Slang To be or become stupefied or disoriented. Often used with out: I was supposed to meet her, but I spaced out and forgot.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The general receptacle of things; room.
2. n. as a character of the universe
3. n. as a cognition or psychological phenomenon
4. n. as a mathematical system. That which is real about space is that the manifoldness of the universe is subject to certain general laws or limitations. In this respect it is like any other uniformity of nature; it is peculiar only in the peculiar way in which we view it—namely, in this, that instead of thinking it, as we do other laws, as abstract and general, we seem to see it, we individualize it and its parts. This peculiarity does not, however, constitute the cognition of space as entirely sui generis, for there is a tendency to individualize other laws. The conception of space is formed, or at least connected with objects, by means of the so-called local signs, by which the excitation of one nerve-terminal is distinguishable from a similar excitation of another, and which are analogous to the signs by which we distinguish present experiences from memories, imaginations, and expectations. These local signs are also the origin of our idea of individuality; so that it is not strange that this mode or being becomes attributed not merely to moving objects, but to the space and time that constitute the law of motion. The celebrated doctrine of Kant was that space is a form of pure intuition—that is, is an idea imported by the mind into cognition, and corresponding to nothing in the things in themselves (though he did not hold that special spatial relations were altogether illusory)—just as color is a quality of sensation which in its generality corresponds to nothing in the object, though differences of color correspond to differences in objects. That this intuition of space is individual, not general, and that no outward intuition is possible except under this form, were points also insisted upon by Kant. At present there are, broadly speaking, two views of space-perception. One is the great doctrine of Berkeley—worked out in different directions by J. S. Mill, Helmholtz, Lotze, Wundt, and others—that the idea of space is evoked under the combined influence of retinal sensations and of muscular sensations of motion, in a manner analogous to that by which the laws of dynamics have been evolved from experience. This is the theory which, under one modification or another, is held by almost all modern scientific psychologists. Some competent writers, however, oppose this, holding that “all our sensations are positively and inexplicably extensive wholes.” This opinion conflicts with the usual one only in so far as it clings to the inexplicability and irrationality of space. The vulgar conception of space as a sort of thing or substance of a different category from material things, through which the latter move without sensible resistance, is acceptable to mathematicians, who find that such a construction lends itself remarkably to their diagrammatic reasoning. For the geometer, space is primarily a system of points having the following properties: It is continuous. See continuity, 2. It is unlimited, whether the part at a finite distance from a given point be limited or not. It has three dimensions—that is, a set of three numbers varying continuously may be placed in continuous one-to-one correspondence with the points of space. By a continuous correspondence is meant one in which a continuous variation in one member will correspond in every case to a continuous variation in the other. All the points of space have perfectly similar spatial relations. It is possible for a rigid body to move in space, and such a body is fixed by the fixation of three points, but not fewer. Any figure may be magnified while preserving the proportionality of all its lines. Geometers often imagine these properties to be modified. In particular, they use the hypothesis of a space of four or more dimensions. They also often suppose the principle of similar figures, or, what is the same thing, the doctrine of parallels, to be false, thus producing what is known as the non-Euclidean geometry. This is of various kinds.
5. n. The interval between any two or more objects, or between terminal points; distance; extent, as of surface: as, the space of a mile.
6. n. The interval between two points of time; quantity of time; duration.
7. n. A short time; a while.
8. n. Hence, time in which to do something; respite; opportunity; leisure.
9. n. A path; course (?).
10. n. In printing, one of the blank types which separate the words in print. The thicknesses most used are one third, one fourth, and one fifth of the square body of the text-type. Hair-spaces, still thinner, are also made. Spaces as thick as one half the square body and all thicker are known as quadrats.
11. n. In musical notation, one of the degrees between the lines of the staff. In the usual staff there are four spaces within the staff, but in the Gregorian staff there are only three. The name and significance of a space depend on the clef and the key-signature. See staff.
12. n. In ornithology, an unfeathered place on the skin between pterylæ; an apterium, Coues, Key to N. A. Birds, p. 87.
13. To move at large; expatiate.
14. To set at intervals; put a space between; specifically, in printing, to arrange the spaces and intervals in or between so that there may be no obvious disproportion: as, to space a paragraph; to space words, lines, or letters.
15. To divide into spaces.
16. To measure by paces.
17. n. The clearance-space in a steam-engine cylinder between the head of the cylinder and the end of the piston when the crank is on its dead center.
18. n. The difference between the readings of the mercurial thermometer when the temperature is rising and when it is falling, due in part to the change in the curvature of the meniscus and in part to the expansion of the bulb from the change in pressure of the vertical capillary column. The general effect is analogous to that of the dead motion of the micrometer-screw.
19. n. Euclidean space.

Wiktionary

1. n. Of time.
2. n. Unlimited or generalized physical extent.
3. n. A bounded or specific physical extent.
4. v. obsolete, intransitive To roam, walk, wander.
5. v. transitive To set some distance apart.
6. v. To insert or utlitise spaces in a written text.
7. v. transitive To eject into outer space, usually without a space suit.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Extension, considered independently of anything which it may contain; that which makes extended objects conceivable and possible.
2. n. Place, having more or less extension; room.
3. n. A quantity or portion of extension; distance from one thing to another; an interval between any two or more objects.
4. n. Quantity of time; an interval between two points of time; duration; time.
5. n. rare A short time; a while.
6. n. obsolete Walk; track; path; course.
7. n. A small piece of metal cast lower than a face type, so as not to receive the ink in printing, -- used to separate words or letters.
8. n. The distance or interval between words or letters in the lines, or between lines, as in books, on a computer screen, etc.
9. n. (Mus.) One of the intervals, or open places, between the lines of the staff.
10. n. that portion of the universe outside the earth or its atmosphere; -- called also outer space.
11. v. obsolete To walk; to rove; to roam.
12. v. (Print.) To arrange or adjust the spaces in or between.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (printing) a block of type without a raised letter; used for spacing between words or sentences
2. n. the unlimited expanse in which everything is located
3. n. a blank character used to separate successive words in writing or printing
4. v. place at intervals
5. n. an empty area (usually bounded in some way between things)
6. n. a blank area
7. n. the interval between two times
8. n. one of the areas between or below or above the lines of a musical staff
9. n. any location outside the Earth's atmosphere
10. n. an area reserved for some particular purpose