Definition of "canvasback" [can•vas•back]

• A North American wild duck (Aythya valisineria) having a reddish-brown head and neck and a whitish back. (noun)

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.

• "Never in this country has the writer tasted a more delicious breakfast dish than the blue winged teal of these waters, while the blackheads, mallards, and the variety which we call the canvasback were found in large numbers."
• "Don't you know, suh, that the burnin 'of a canvasback is a crime?"
• "And they learned to eat roasted mallard and canvasback in the"