canvasback
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of canvasback
An Americanism dating back to 1595–1605; after the canvaslike color of its back
Compare meaning
How does canvasback compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Vocabulary lists containing canvasback
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
On the banks of Yosemite Creek, brown-headed canvasback ducks plunged and preened.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 1, 2021
In this way, evening by evening, I drew them nearer till at length in the dusk one evening a young canvasback snatched a piece of bread from my fingers.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
An early Portland matron startled the populace with a carriage robe made of the breast feathers of 144 canvasback ducks.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
At 6:23 a.m., a flight of canvasback ducks wheeled confidently in.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
Prairie-chickens have dark meat, and many epicures declare that they should be cooked quite as rare as canvasback ducks and that their flavor when so served is unsurpassed.
From The Century Cook Book by Ronald, Mary
Also spotted, but in fewer numbers, were snow geese, buffleheads, redheads, goldeneyes, American widgeon, ruddy, ring-necked, canvasbacks, scaup and wood ducks.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 15, 2015
Next day, from a New York Rod & Gun Club blind on Spesuti Island, he shot four black ducks and eight canvasbacks.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
From Susquehanna Flats to the Suisun marshes and from the Kankakee marshes to Pas a l'Outre all species of wild waterfowl had been scarce; canvasbacks, redheads, ruddy ducks, teals, gadwalls, widgeons, shovelers especially so.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
Mr. Chrysler explained that he regularly scattered grain over his marshes except during hunting season, said 500 canvasbacks had boarded there last winter.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
He had been born on the eastern shore of Maryland and was brought up on canvasbacks, soft-shell crabs and terrapin—not to mention clams and sheepshead.
From Peter: a novel of which he is not the hero by Smith, Francis Hopkinson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.