spanner

UK/ˈspænə/US/ˈspænɚ/

nounB1+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,136 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: spanners

A spanner is a tool that grips a nut and turns it. A ring spanner, an adjustable spanner, a set of spanners.

It is the British word; America says wrench. A ring spanner grips all six faces and is far less likely to round a nut off than an open-ended one, and throwing a spanner in the works means wrecking a plan.

Definitions of spanner

1nounspannerA tool that grips a nut and turns it.B1+
“Pass me the spanner so I can tighten this bolt on the bike.”

spanner is a tool.

Also accepted in games: wrench

Where it comes from

Middle English
spanne
English
span
English, today
spanner

From span + -er. span comes from Middle English spanne. From Middle English spanne, from Old English spann, from Proto-Germanic spannō (“span, handbreadth”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)pend- (“to stretch”). Cognate with Dutch span, spanne, German Spanne. The sense “pair of horses” is probably from Old English ġespan, ġespann (“a joining; a fastening together; clasp; yoke”), from Proto-West Germanic. Cognate with Dutch gespan, German Gespann.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Tools & DIY

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spanner in the wild

In the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, spanner is the standard term.
Wrench
The most common shapes are called open-ended spanner and ring spanner.
Wrench
The parameter t is called the stretch factor or dilation factor of the spanner.
Geometric spanner
Chew in 1986, although the term "spanner" was not used in the original paper.
Geometric spanner
A podger spanner, or podger, is a tool in the form of a short bar, usually tapered and often incorporating a wrench at one end.
Podger spanner

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

span

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