# canal

Pronunciation: say "kuh-NAL" /kəˈnæl/

## Noun

1. A man-made waterway, or a river improved by digging, used for travel, shipping, or irrigation.
   - Simple: A human-made water channel dug for boats, shipping, or watering fields.
   - _Barges still move freight along the canal between the two ports._
   - _Engineers widened the old canal so larger vessels could pass through._
2. A tube-like channel running through the body or through a plant.
   - Simple: A tube-shaped passage inside the body or inside a plant.
   - _Nerves pass through a bony canal at the base of the skull._
   - _Resin flows through specialized canals in the pine's wood._
5. One of the faint, hazy markings resembling straight lines seen on early telescopic images of the surface of Mars.
   - Simple: One of the faint straight lines that early astronomers thought they saw on Mars.
   - _Lowell sketched a fine canal running between two dark patches on the Martian disk._
   - _Later photographs failed to confirm the canals earlier observers had drawn._

## Verb

3. To dig an artificial waterway through or to a place, especially in order to drain it.
   - Simple: To dig a waterway across or into a place, often to drain water away.
   - _The estate owner decided to canal the wetlands for better drainage._
   - _Engineers canaled the swampy basin before construction could begin._
4. To make one's way by boat along a canal.
   - Simple: To make a journey by boat along a canal.
   - _Each summer they canal across the region in a narrowboat._
   - _The couple canaled along the old waterway for two weeks._

## Origin

Borrowed through Middle French and Old French "canal" from Latin "canālis" (channel, canal), which derives from "canna" (reed, cane), ultimately from Ancient Greek "kánna" (reed) and older Akkadian and Sumerian words for reed. It is a doublet of "channel".

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/canal (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).