canvasback
Americannoun
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canvasbacks,
plural
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canvasback
plural
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
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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
For dinner a director of the Pennsylvania Railroad had presented a canvasback duck.
From Time Magazine Archive
To the list of protected birds it added Atlantic brant, canvasback and redhead ducks.
From Time Magazine Archive
He was a master of the graduated political gift; Presidents occasionally might receive a case of Madeira, while Cabinet members would rate only terrapin, and Congressmen wound up with canvasback duck.
From Time Magazine Archive
Now the festive frog is croaking in the mere, And the canvasback is honking in the bay, And the summer-girl is smiling full of cheer On the willieboys that chance along her way.
From The Genial Idiot His Views and Reviews by John Kendrick Bangs
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
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
Late on summer evenings when I could get the canvasbacks by themselves I knelt, leaning over the edge of the bank, throwing small pieces of bread.
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
Five minutes later he returned with his kicker and her two ducks—great, fat, heavy canvasbacks, beautiful in their red, black, and drab plumage.
From Blue-Bird Weather by Charles Dana Gibson
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.
