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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

canvas.

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.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkæn.vəs//ˈkæn.væs/Nigeria
  1. 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.

  2. 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.
  3. A mesh of loosely woven cotton strands or molded plastic to be decorated with needlepoint, cross-stitch, rug hooking, or other crafts.

  4. A basis for creative work.

    figuratively
    The author takes rural midwestern life as a canvas for a series of tightly woven character studies
  5. A region on which graphics can be rendered.

  6. Sails in general.

  7. A tent.

    He spent the night under canvas.
  8. A rough draft or model of a song, air, or other literary or musical composition; especially one to show a poet the measure of the verses he is to make.

  9. Athletic shoes.

    Nigeria
Where this word comes from

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.

verb/ˈkæn.vəs//ˈkæn.væs/Nigeria
  1. To cover (an area or object) with canvas.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

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.

verb/ˈkæn.vəs//ˈkæn.væs/Nigeria
  1. Obsolete spelling of canvass.

    alt-of · obsolete
Where this word comes from

A variant of canvass.

noun/ˈkæn.vəs//ˈkæn.væs/Nigeria
  1. Obsolete spelling of canvass.

    alt-of · obsolete
Where this word comes from

A variant of canvass.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.