canal

noun

an artificial waterway for navigation, irrigation, etc.

a long narrow arm of the sea penetrating far inland.

a tubular passage or cavity for food, air, etc., especially in an animal or plant; a duct.

channel; watercourse.

Astronomy. one of the long, narrow, dark lines on the surface of the planet Mars, as seen telescopically from the earth.

verb (used with object)

to make a canal through.

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Canal is always a great word to know.

So is pulsar. Does it mean:

one of several hundred known celestial objects, generally believed to be rapidly rotating neutron stars, that emit pulses of radiation such as radio waves with a high degree of regularity

a cloud of interstellar gas and dust that appears hazy, or fuzzy, and extended in a telescope view

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Origin:
1400–50; late Middle English: waterpipe, tubular passage < Latin canālis, perhaps equivalent to can(na) reed, pipe (see cane) + -ālis -al¹; def. 5 a mistranslation of Italian canali channels, term used by G. V. Schiaparelli

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Collins

World English Dictionary

canal (kəˈnæl)

—n
1.	an artificial waterway constructed for navigation, irrigation, water power, etc
2.	any of various tubular passages or ducts: the alimentary canal
3.	any of various elongated intercellular spaces in plants
4.	astronomy any of the indistinct surface features of Mars originally thought to be a network of channels but not seen on close-range photographs. They are caused by an optical illusion in which faint geological features appear to have a geometric structure

—vb , -nals, -nalling, -nalled, -nals, -naling, -naled
5.	to dig a canal through
6.	to provide with a canal or canals

[C15 (in the sense: pipe, tube): from Latin canālis channel, water pipe, from canna reed, cane¹]

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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

canal

early 15c., from Fr. canal (12c.), noun use of an adj., from L. canalis "water pipe, groove, channel," from canna "reed." Originally "a pipe for liquid," its sense transfered by 1670s to "artificial waterway."

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

canal ca·nal (kə-nāl')
n.
A duct, a channel, or a tubular structure.

Matching Quote

"The policy of this country is a canal under American control. The United States cannot consent to the surrender of this control to any European power.... The capital invested by corporations or citizens of other countries in such an enterprise must in a great degree look for protection to one or more of the great powers of the world. No European power can intervene for such protection without adopting measures on this continent which the United States would deem wholly inadmissible. If the protection of the United States is relied upon, The United States must exercise such control as will enable this country to protect its national interests.... An interoceanic canal across the American Isthmus ... would be the great ocean thoroughfare between our Atlantic and our Pacific shores, and virtually a part of the coastline of the United States. Our merely commercial interest in it is greater than that of all other countries, while its relations to our power and prosperity as a nation, to our means of defense, our unity, peace, and safety, are matters of paramount concern to the people of the United States."

-Rutherford Birchard Hayes

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