can·vas  (kān'vəs) 
n. A heavy, coarse, closely woven fabric of cotton, hemp, or flax, used for tents and sails. A piece of such fabric on which a painting, especially an oil painting, is executed. A painting executed on such fabric. A tent or group of tents. A circus tent.
A fabric of coarse open weave, used as a foundation for needlework. The background against which events unfold, as in a historical narrative: a grim portrait of despair against the bright canvas of the postwar economy. Nautical A sail or set of sails. A tent or group of tents. A circus tent.
Sports The floor of a ring in which boxing or wrestling takes place.
[Middle English canevas, from Old French and from Medieval Latin canavāsium, both ultimately from Latin cannabis, hemp; see cannabis.] |
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