canvas

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a heavy, closely woven fabric used for clothing, chairs, sails or tents

   My shoes are made out of canvas.

2. 2
   noun

   the mat that forms the floor of the ring in which boxers or professional wrestlers compete

   the boxer picked himself up off the canvas

3. 3
   noun

   the setting for a narrative or fictional or dramatic account

   the crowded canvas of history

4. 4
   verb

   to cover with canvas

   I canvassed the walls of the living room so as to conceal the ugly cracks.

5. 5
   verb

   to get the opinions of people by asking specific questions

   I canvassed in the local area to see what percentage of people were voting for my candidate.

6. 6
   noun

   A type of coarse cloth, woven from hemp (traditionally) or from cotton and polyesters, useful for making sails, tents, and overcoats or as a surface for paintings.

   The term canvas is very widely used, as well to denote the coarse fabrics employed for kitchen use, as for strainers, and wraps for meat, as for the best quality of ordinary table and shirting linen.

7. 7
   noun

   A piece of such cloth stretched across a frame on which one may paint an artwork.

   She is painting a moonlight scene on the canvas.

8. 8
   noun

   A basis for creative work.

   The author takes rural midwestern life as a canvas for a series of tightly woven character studies

Etymology

From Middle English canevas, from Anglo-Norman, from Old Northern French canevas (compare Old French chanevas, chenevas) from a root derived from Latin cannabis, from Ancient Greek κάνναβις (kánnabis). Compare French canevas, resulting from a blend of the Old French and a Picard dialect word, itself from Old Northern French. Doublet of cannabis and hemp.