channels

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of channel.

   The narrow channels between the islands are tricky to navigate at low tide.

   Streaming services offer far more channels than traditional broadcasters once did.

   Note

   A regular -s plural that carries every sense of the noun with it: river beds and the deeper courses through a reef or bay, the narrow waters between land masses, the means by which anything is conveyed, and the ion channels of a cell membrane. The same spelling also serves as the verb's present-tense form, so in a phrase like "the river channels" the next words decide which one you are reading.

2. 2
   nouncountableplural

   The formal lines of authority and procedure through which orders, requests, and decisions are expected to pass.

   Complaints filed outside the official channels were returned without a response.

   The general insisted that every order move down through the established military channels.

   Similarprocedures, routes

   Note

   Bureaucracy's plural: this meaning exists only in the plural, and in its most idiomatic use it takes no article at all. You put a request through channels or go through channels. Add a modifier and the article returns: the official channels, the established channels. It is the conveying sense of channel turned institutional. Here the thing that passes along the route is a request or an order, and the route is a chain of people.

   If you want the budget changed, you'll have to go through channels.

   She sent the complaint through channels and waited three months for a reply.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of channel.

   The new system channels customer feedback straight to the design team.

   A skilled mediator channels heated disagreement into productive discussion.

   Note

   Every verb sense behind this form is transitive, so it almost always has an object right after it. A crew channels a groove into rock, and a coach channels energy into practice. Something can also channel a voice by serving as its medium, and in performance an actor channels an idol by playing in that person's manner. That object is the quickest way to tell it from the plural noun spelled the same way.

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