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• canterbury
  canterbury

  noun

  a stand having sections for holding magazines, sheet music, or loose papers.
• Canterbury
  Canterbury

  noun

  a city in E Kent, in SE England: cathedral; early ecclesiastical center of England.

canterbury

¹ American  

[kan-ter-ber-ee, -buh-ree] / ˈkæn tərˌbɛr i, -bə ri /

noun

• canterburies
  plural

1. a stand having sections for holding magazines, sheet music, or loose papers.

2. a supper tray with partitions for cutlery and plates.

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Canterbury ² American  

[kan-ter-ber-ee, -buh-ree, -bree] / ˈkæn tərˌbɛr i, -bə ri, -bri /

noun

1. a city in E Kent, in SE England: cathedral; early ecclesiastical center of England.

2. a municipality in E New South Wales, in SE Australia: a part of Sydney.

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Canterbury ¹ British  

/ ˈkæntəbərɪ, -brɪ /

noun

1. Latin name: Durovernum. a city in SE England, in E Kent: starting point for St Augustine's mission to England (597 _ad ); cathedral where St Thomas à Becket was martyred (1170); seat of the archbishop and primate of England; seat of the University of Kent (1965). Pop: 43 552 (2001)

2. a regional council area of New Zealand, on E central South Island on Canterbury Bight : mountainous with coastal lowlands; agricultural. Chief town: Christchurch. Pop: 520 500 (2004 est). Area: 43 371 sq km (16 742 sq miles)

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canterbury ² British  

/ ˈkæntəbərɪ, -brɪ /

noun

1. a late 18th-century low wooden stand with partitions for holding cutlery and plates: often mounted on casters

2. a similar 19th-century stand used for holding sheet music, music books, or magazines

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• Canterburian
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• canterburies
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of canterbury

1840–50; after Canterbury, England

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

canterbury Canterbury

“This year, the flowers that are blooming include canterbury and school bells, arroyo lupine, and California poppy,” the parks department said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2023

Yet his finest work was full of ironical laughter; a "canterbury tale," in medieval slang, was a lie.

From Time Magazine Archive

Beds of tiger lilies, pinks, larkspur, sweetwilliams, canterbury bells, primroses, gillyflowers, lobelia, bloomed in a luxuriance that the methodical box which bordered them could not restrain.

From The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 3, December, 1884 by Various

The meadows on the hillside are full of yarrow and canterbury bells; everything’s in bloom.

From The Adventures of Maya the Bee by Arthur Guiterman

If you will look out the 'Beggar's Opera' from the large canterbury.

From The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

Stories of the massacre would have reached Stratford and Canterbury, where Shakespeare and Marlowe were growing up, both 8 years old at the time.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2026

The Archbishop of Canterbury told Brain he would be happy to see a NOS in every town and city in Britain.

From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026

Probably designed and made soon after 1066 at Canterbury, it is not a true tapestry, but an embroidered narrative, and the oldest and most complete one we have.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026

He then secured a position at Canterbury, where he honed his skills at cutting stone and came to appreciate the grand tradition of which he was now a part.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

He was keen to elide the differences between ancient Rome and his own London, as well as those between Verona and Canterbury.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

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