canvas

noun

1. A type of coarse cloth, woven from hemp (traditionally) or from cotton and polyesters, useful for making sails, tents, and overcoats or as a surface for paintings.

   “The term canvas is very widely used, as well to denote the coarse fabrics employed for kitchen use, as for strainers, and wraps for meat, as for the best quality of ordinary table and shirting linen.”

2. A piece of such cloth stretched across a frame on which one may paint an artwork.

   “She is painting a moonlight scene on the canvas.”

   “Light, rich as that which glows on the canvas of Claude.”

   “A local doctor had bought one canvas and but for that lucky chance he would have been out of pocket.”

3. A mesh of loosely woven cotton strands or molded plastic to be decorated with needlepoint, cross-stitch, rug hooking, or other crafts.
4. (figuratively)A basis for creative work.

   “The author takes rural midwestern life as a canvas for a series of tightly woven character studies”

5. A region on which graphics can be rendered.
6. Sails in general.

   “The double desire of being able to overtake a weaker flying enemy, or to escape when pursued by a stronger, has induced the owners to overmast their cruisers, and to spread too much canvass; and the great number of men, many of them not seamen, who being upon deck when a ship heels suddenly are huddled down to leeward, and increase by their weight the effect of the wind.”

7. A tent.

   “He spent the night under canvas.”

8. A rough draft or model of a song, air, or other literary or musical composition; especially one to show a poet the measure of the verses he is to make.
9. (Nigeria)Athletic shoes.
10. (alt-of, obsolete)Obsolete spelling of canvass.

    “[…] I haue learned this faſhion of Sᵗ. Hierome the Oracle of Antiquitie, vvho vvas vvont to entertaine his Paula, and Euſtochium, Marcella, Principia, Hedibia, and other deuout Ladies, vvith learned canuaſes of the deep pointes of Diuinity.”

    “It is a wonder to ſee how ſlauiſhly theſe kinde of [ambitious] men will ſubiect themſelues, vvhen they are about a canvas, to euery inferiour perſon, vvhat paines they vvill take, runne, ride, caſt, plot & countermine, proteſt & ſvveare, vow, promiſe, vvhat labours vndergoe, earely vp, dovvne late; […]”

    “But vvhy ſhouldſt thou take thy Canvas ſo to heart? It may bee thou art not fit. But as a childe that vveares his fathers ſhooes, hat, headpeece, breſtplate, or breeches; or holds his ſpeare, but is nether able to vveild the one, or vveare the other; ſo vvouldſt thou doe by ſuch an office or Magiſtracy, thou art vnfit.”

    “And now I'll tell thee, I have promis'd him / As much as marriage comes to, and I lose / My honour, if my don receive the canvas.”

    “I know well enough that the biſhoprics and cures, under kingly and ſeignoral patronage, as now they are in England, and as they have been lately in France, are ſometimes acquired by unworthy methods; but the other mode of eccleſiaſtical canvas ſubjects them infinitely more ſurely and more generally to all the evil arts of low ambition, which, operating on and through greater numbers, will produce miſchief in proportion.”

verb

1. (transitive)To cover (an area or object) with canvas.
2. (alt-of, obsolete)Obsolete spelling of canvass.

   “And with the aunſwere here vpon eftſoones in hand they go, / The doubtfull wordes wherof they ſcan and canuas to and fro.”

   “But nowe the Meſſenger that was thus ſent to the Lorde Hume [Alexander Home, 5th Lord Home], comming to him declared in what caſe hys houſe and people ſtoode, who beeing (as was ſuppoſed) not ſo farre off, but that he might heare howe luſtily the Engliſhe Canons did canuas and batter his Humiſhe Caſtell Walles, did nowe agree to meete the Marshall maiſter Drurie [William Drury] two myles diſtant from the ſayde Caſtell, and there to common further with him in that matter.”

   “Thou that giu'ſt VVhores Indulgences to ſinne, / Ile canuas thee in thy broad Cardinalls Hat, / If thou proceed in this thy inſolence.”

   “[T]he nature of man, created after the Image of God, I mean, his Reaſonable nature, hath ſuch an agreement and liking to all that is ſubſtantially and really good, (ſuch are all the Commands of the Natural and Chriſtian Law) that it ſtill canvaſeth on that ſide, and ſolicites the will to embrace the good, and prefer it before the pleaſurable evil; […]”

   “[H]e endeavoured by his Agents to be choſe a Burgeſs for the Univerſity of Oxon, to ſerve in that Parliament vvhich began at VVeſtm[inster] 25 Apr. 1660, as at one or tvvo places beſides, vvhere he had canvas'd for votes; […]”