canal

[kuh-nal]

noun

1. an artificial waterway for navigation, irrigation, etc.

2. a long narrow arm of the sea penetrating far inland.

3. a tubular passage or cavity for food, air, etc., especially in an animal or plant; a duct.

4. channel; watercourse.

5. Astronomy.,  one of the long, narrow, dark lines on the surface of the planet Mars, as seen telescopically from the earth.

verb (used with object)

canalled, canaled, canalling, canaling. 

1. to make a canal through.

canal

/ kəˈnæl /

noun

1. an artificial waterway constructed for navigation, irrigation, water power, etc

2. any of various tubular passages or ducts

   the alimentary canal

3. any of various elongated intercellular spaces in plants

4. astronomy any of the indistinct surface features of Mars originally thought to be a network of channels but not seen on close-range photographs. They are caused by an optical illusion in which faint geological features appear to have a geometric structure

verb

1. to dig a canal through

2. to provide with a canal or canals

Word History and Origins

Origin of canal¹

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English: “waterpipe, tubular passage,” from Latin canālis, perhaps equivalent to can(na) “reed, pipe” ( cane ) + -ālis -al ¹; canal def. 5 a mistranslation of Italian canali “channels,” the term used by G. V. Schiaparelli

Word History and Origins

Origin of canal¹

C15 (in the sense: pipe, tube): from Latin canālis channel, water pipe, from canna reed, _cane ¹

Example Sentences

Mystified, he wanders the dank halls of their rented palazzo and the fetid alleyways of the “pestilential city” where canal waters slither past like “a fat, grey-green worm.”

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In Hangzhou, once the capital of Song China, Marco Polo observed markets linked by canals and warehouses that “supply them with every article that could be desired.”

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Visitors staying in a vehicle or on board a vessel, such a canal boat which mainly stays in one place, will also have to pay the charge.

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But what caught the popular imagination were the giant breakfast eggcups on the roof overlooking the canal.

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There's a bit of a queue also at a little bridge that leads over a canal towards the windmills.

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