Definition of "canal" []

• An artificial waterway or artificially improved river used for travel, shipping, or irrigation. (noun)
• Anatomy A tube, duct, or passageway. (noun)
• Astronomy One of the faint, hazy markings resembling straight lines on early telescopic images of the surface of Mars. (noun)
• To dig an artificial waterway through: canal an isthmus. (verb-transitive)
• To provide with an artificial waterway or waterways. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Before these impervious forest retreats were thus pierced, they could not have tasted human blood; for ages it must have been unknown to them, even by tradition; and if they taxed all other boats on the canal as they did, ours, a _canal share_ with them must be considerably above par, and highly profitable."
• "This canal is actually a main street of the city just as it would be in Venice and was jammed with houses side by side and the houses were jammed with people."
• "An American tourist and writer once said: Usually a canal is a disfigurement, but the Rideau is different: it is a decorative feature and a source of endless entertainment."