canalize

American  

[kan-l-ahyz, kuh-nal-ahyz] / ˈkæn lˌaɪz, kəˈnæl aɪz /

especially British, canalise

verb (used with object)

canalized, canalizing

1. to make a canal or canals through.

2. to convert into a canal.

3. to divide (a stream) into reaches with locks or dams, usually to maintain navigable depths.

4. to divert into certain channels; give a certain direction to or provide a certain outlet for.

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canalize British  

/ ˈkænəˌlaɪz /

verb

1. to provide with or convert into a canal or canals

2. to give a particular direction to or provide an outlet for; channel

3. to divide a channel into separate reaches controlled by dams and weirs to aid navigation, control water levels, generate power, etc

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Other Word Forms

• canalization
  noun
• uncanalized
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of canalize

First recorded in 1850–55; canal + -ize

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

canalize canalized canalizing

Making music, “you are away, somehow, from real tragedies, but you can canalize everything that you are feeling and suffering from into something that becomes a moment,” Tanja continued.

From New York Times ● Feb. 2, 2023

Some became conscious of the role a state could play in intervening in the economy in order to curb and canalize democracy.

From Slate ● Apr. 7, 2017

They also went into shelf hardware, planned to establish retail stores to canalize large production.

From Time Magazine Archive

The modern movement is a conscious effort to direct and canalize the stupendous energy of modern civilization between its proper architectural embankments.

From Time Magazine Archive

But we have to get intelligences together, we have to canalize thought before it can work and produce its due effects.

From In the Fourth Year Anticipations of a World Peace by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Our polluted, chopped up, canalized, dammed and damned rivers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 7, 2020

They do this to restore, to the fullest extent possible, the habitats of and —to put the natural curves back in canalized rivers, for instance, so the waters can flow as they once did.

From Scientific American ● Feb. 15, 2013

Into these cisterns they evidently canalized the rains, which descended by a trough from the hills and of which the supply was undoubtedly scant.

From The New Yorker ● May 6, 1955

Anxiety, if it is successfully canalized into an aggressive effort to help win the war, will never become fear.

From Time Magazine Archive

Few of the poets can have distinguished the original fountain of Plato from the canalized supply of the Italian Neoplatonists.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts" by Various

Slowly and patiently they are canalizing the spirit that at once directs, energizes and safeguards its operation.

From Messages to America by Shoghi Effendi

Notwithstanding the work already done, such as canalizing and regulating the rivers, the erection of dams, &c., the problems of preventing inundations, and of reclaiming the marshes, have not yet been satisfactorily solved.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 8 "Hudson River" to "Hurstmonceaux" by Various

It is important to turn them from these in order to tranquilize and regulate their course by damming them up and canalizing them.

From The Sexual Question A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study by Auguste Forel

He had swum with the tide of public sentiment in cardinal matters, instead of stemming or canalizing and guiding it.

From The Inside Story of the Peace Conference by Emile Joseph Dillon

Twenty-five years of mistakes, miscalculations, improvidence, hundreds of millions thrown away, in the great work of canalizing the country, have proved it to the most incredulous.

From System of Economical Contradictions; or, the Philosophy of Misery by P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph) Proudhon

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