CANVAS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does canvas mean? 

• CANVAS (noun)
  The noun CANVAS has 6 senses:

1. a heavy, closely woven fabric (used for clothing or chairs or sails or tents)

2. an oil painting on canvas fabric

3. the setting for a narrative or fictional or dramatic account

4. a tent made of canvas fabric

5. a large piece of fabric (usually canvas fabric) by means of which wind is used to propel a sailing vessel

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

  Familiarity information: CANVAS used as a noun is common.

• CANVAS (verb)
  The verb CANVAS has 1 sense:

1. cover with canvas

  Familiarity information: CANVAS used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CANVAS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A heavy, closely woven fabric (used for clothing or chairs or sails or tents)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

canvas; canvass

Hypernyms ("canvas" is a kind of...):

cloth; fabric; material; textile (artifact made by weaving or felting or knitting or crocheting natural or synthetic fibers)

Meronyms (substance of "canvas"):

hemp (a plant fiber)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "canvas"):

tarp; tarpaulin (waterproofed canvas)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An oil painting on canvas fabric

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

canvas; canvass

Hypernyms ("canvas" is a kind of...):

oil painting (a picture painted with oil paints)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The setting for a narrative or fictional or dramatic account

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

canvas; canvass

Context example:

the movie demanded a dramatic canvas of sound

Hypernyms ("canvas" is a kind of...):

background; scope; setting (the state of the environment in which a situation exists)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A tent made of canvas fabric

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

canvas; canvas tent; canvass

Hypernyms ("canvas" is a kind of...):

collapsible shelter; tent (a portable shelter (usually of canvas stretched over supporting poles and fastened to the ground with ropes and pegs))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "canvas"):

big top; circus tent; round top; top (a canvas tent to house the audience at a circus performance)

field tent (a canvas tent for use in the field)

Sibley tent (a light conical canvas tent erected on a tripod with ventilation at the top)

wall tent (a canvas tent with four vertical walls)

Sense 5

Meaning:

A large piece of fabric (usually canvas fabric) by means of which wind is used to propel a sailing vessel

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

canvas; canvass; sail; sheet

Hypernyms ("canvas" is a kind of...):

piece of cloth; piece of material (a separate part consisting of fabric)

Meronyms (parts of "canvas"):

reef (one of several strips across a sail that can be taken in or rolled up to lessen the area of the sail that is exposed to the wind)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "canvas"):

topsail (a sail (or either of a pair of sails) immediately above the lowermost sail of a mast and supported by a topmast)

topgallant; topgallant sail (a sail set on a yard of a topgallant mast)

square sail (a four-sided sail set beneath a horizontal yard suspended at the middle from a mast)

skysail (the sail above the royal on a square-rigger)

save-all (a sail set to catch wind spilled from a larger sail)

royal (a sail set next above the topgallant on a royal mast)

press of canvas; press of sail (the greatest amount of sail that a ship can carry safely)

main-topsail (a topsail set on the mainmast)

mainsail (the lowermost sail on the mainmast)

headsail (any sail set forward of the foremast of a vessel)

foresail (the lowest sail on the foremast of a square-rigged vessel)

fore-and-aft sail (any sail not set on a yard and whose normal position is in a fore-and-aft direction)

crossjack; mizzen course (the lowermost sail on a mizzenmast)

balloon sail (any light loose sail)

Holonyms ("canvas" is a part of...):

sailing ship; sailing vessel (a vessel that is powered by the wind; often having several masts)

Sense 6

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

canvas; canvass

Context example:

the boxer picked himself up off the canvas

Hypernyms ("canvas" is a kind of...):

gym mat; mat (sports equipment consisting of a piece of thick padding on the floor for gymnastic sports)

Holonyms ("canvas" is a part of...):

ring (a platform usually marked off by ropes in which contestants box or wrestle)

• CANVAS (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they canvas    ... he / she / it canvases   
Past simple: canvased   
Past participle: canvased   
-ing form: canvasing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cover with canvas

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

She canvassed the walls of her living room so as to conceal the ugly cracks

Hypernyms (to "canvas" is one way to...):

cover (provide with a covering or cause to be covered)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

 Context examples 

In painting there are only two dimensions to the canvas, yet you accept the illusion of three dimensions which the art of a painter enables him to throw into the canvas.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Why we’ve got to make the best of the first of it and run down to our boats before our canvas is ripped out of us.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The HISPANIOLA was under her main-sail and two jibs, and the beautiful white canvas shone in the sun like snow or silver.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Lambart visualizes the mantle as connected reservoirs, like dots and lines on a canvas.

(Earth's mantle looks like a painting, National Science Foundation)

"It is a large canvas," I murmured.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

No wonder they outsail us when the wind can blow through our canvas.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He closed on the canvas with his teeth and gave a gentle tug.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

A spare parlour and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the passage, and carpets on the stairs.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The huskies had chewed through the sled lashings and canvas coverings.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

As Em'ly held out her hand to Ham, I saw him put in it a little canvas bag.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)