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

Etymology

Origin of canalize

First recorded in 1850–55; canal + -ize

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

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

To have peace, the nations must forgo the urge to canalize to fixed ends the productive energies of private citizens.

From Time Magazine Archive

What is important is that as life goes on, necessity, the social organization and gradual concentration of energy canalize the purposes, reduce the power of the irrelevant and temporary desires.

From The Foundations of Personality by Myerson, Abraham

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

Westward, up the Yangtse valley, the provinces of Anhwei, Kiangsi, Hunan and Hupeh have very extensive canalized tracts, probably exceeding 28,000 square miles in area, and Figs.

From Farmers of Forty Centuries; Or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and Japan by King, F. H. (Franklin Hiram)

It must be remembered that before the canalizing of the Thames the influence of the tide was perceptible at least as high as Staines, where was also a crossing-place of immemorial antiquity.

From Early Britain—Roman Britain by Conybeare, Edward

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 Proudhon, P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph)

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 Dillon, Emile Joseph

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

From Messages to America by Shoghi Effendi

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 Forel, Auguste