Channel

7 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Channel \Chan"nel\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Channeled}, or
     {Channelled}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Channeling}, or
     {Channelling}.]
     1. To form a channel in; to cut or wear a channel or channels
        in; to groove.
        [1913 Webster]


  
              No more shall trenching war channel her fields.
                                                    --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. To course through or over, as in a channel. --Cowper.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Channel \Chan"nel\ (ch[a^]n"n[e^]l), n. [OE. chanel, canel, OF.
     chanel, F. chenel, fr. L. canalis. See {Canal}.]
     1. The hollow bed where a stream of water runs or may run.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. The deeper part of a river, harbor, strait, etc., where
        the main current flows, or which affords the best and
        safest passage for vessels.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. (Geog.) A strait, or narrow sea, between two portions of
        lands; as, the British Channel.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. That through which anything passes; a means of passing,
        conveying, or transmitting; as, the news was conveyed to
        us by different channels.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The veins are converging channels.    --Dalton.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              At best, he is but a channel to convey to the
              National assembly such matter as may import that
              body to know.                         --Burke.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     5. A gutter; a groove, as in a fluted column.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     6. pl. [Cf. {Chain wales}.] (Naut.) Flat ledges of heavy
        plank bolted edgewise to the outside of a vessel, to
        increase the spread of the shrouds and carry them clear of
        the bulwarks.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     7. pl. official routes of communication, especially the
        official means by which information should be transmitted
        in a bureaucracy; as, to submit a request through
        channels; you have to go through channels.
        [PJC]
  
     8. a band of electromagnetic wave frequencies that is used
        for one-way or two-way radio communication; especially,
        the frequency bands assigned by the FTC for use in
        television broadcasting, and designated by a specific
        number; as, channel 2 in New York is owned by CBS.
        [PJC]
  
     9. one of the signals in an electronic device which receives
        or sends more than one signal simultaneously, as in
        stereophonic radios, records, or CD players, or in
        measuring equipment which gathers multiple measurements
        simultaneously.
        [PJC]
  
     10. (Cell biology) an opening in a cell membrane which serves
         to actively transport or allow passive transport of
         substances across the membrane; as, an ion channel in a
         nerve cell.
         [PJC]
  
     11. (Computers) a path for transmission of signals between
         devices within a computer or between a computer and an
         external device; as, a DMA channel.
         [PJC]
  
     {Channel bar}, {Channel iron} (Arch.), an iron bar or beam
        having a section resembling a flat gutter or channel.
  
     {Channel bill} (Zool.), a very large Australian cuckoo
        ({Scythrops Nov[ae]hollandi[ae]}.
  
     {Channel goose}. (Zool.) See {Gannet}.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  channel
       n 1: a path over which electrical signals can pass; "a channel is
            typically what you rent from a telephone company" [syn:
            {transmission channel}]
       2: a passage for water (or other fluids) to flow through; "the
          fields were crossed with irrigation channels"; "gutters
          carried off the rainwater into a series of channels under
          the street"
       3: a long narrow furrow cut either by a natural process (such
          as erosion) or by a tool (as e.g. a groove in a phonograph
          record) [syn: {groove}]
       4: a deep and relatively narrow body of water (as in a river or
          a harbor or a strait linking two larger bodies) that
          allows the best passage for vessels; "the ship went
          aground in the channel"
       5: (often plural) a means of communication or access; "it must
          go through official channels"; "lines of communication
          were set up between the two firms" [syn: {communication
          channel}, {line}]
       6: a bodily passage or tube lined with epithelial cells and
          conveying a secretion or other substance; "the tear duct
          was obstructed"; "the alimentary canal"; "poison is
          released through a channel in the snake's fangs" [syn: {duct},
           {epithelial duct}, {canal}]
       7: a television station and its programs; "a satellite TV
          channel"; "surfing through the channels"; "they offer more
          than one hundred channels" [syn: {television channel}, {TV
          channel}]
       8: a way of selling a company's product either directly or via
          distributors; "possible distribution channels are
          wholesalers or small retailers or retail chains or direct
          mailers or your own stores" [syn: {distribution channel}]
       v 1: transmit or serve as the medium for transmission; "Sound
            carries well over water"; "The airwaves carry the
            sound"; "Many metals conduct heat" [syn: {conduct}, {transmit},
             {convey}, {carry}]
       2: direct the flow of; "channel infomartion towards a broad
          audience" [syn: {canalize}, {canalise}]
       3: send from one person or place to another; "transmit a
          message" [syn: {transmit}, {transfer}, {transport}, {channelize},
           {channelise}]
       [also: {channelling}, {channelled}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  248 Moby Thesaurus words for "channel":
     EDP, access, adolescent stream, adviser, aisle, alley,
     amateur band, ambulatory, announcer, annunciator, aperture,
     approach, approaches, aqueduct, arcade, arroyo, artery, authority,
     avenue, band, basin, beck, bed, bit, blowhole, bottleneck, bottom,
     bourn, braided stream, branch, brook, brooklet, burn, canal,
     canalization, canalize, carry, carve, chamfer, channelize, chisel,
     chute, citizens band, cloister, colonnade, communicant,
     communication, communication explosion, communication theory,
     communicator, conduct, conduit, connection, convey, corridor,
     corrugate, coulee, course, covered way, crack, creek, crick, crimp,
     cut, dado, data retrieval, data storage, debouch, decoding, defile,
     dike, direct, ditch, door, duct, egress,
     electronic data processing, emunctory, encoding, engrave,
     enlightener, entrenchment, entropy, escape, estuary, exhaust, exit,
     expert witness, fairway, ferry, floodgate, floor, flowing stream,
     flume, flute, fluviation, ford, fosse, frequency band, fresh,
     freshet, funnel, furrow, gallery, gash, gill, goffer, gossipmonger,
     gouge, grapevine, groove, ground, guide, gully, gutter, ha-ha,
     incise, informant, information center, information explosion,
     information medium, information theory, informer, inlet,
     interchange, intersection, interviewee, isthmus, junction, kennel,
     kill, lane, lazy stream, lead, loophole, meandering stream, means,
     medium, midchannel, midstream, millstream, moat, monitor,
     mouthpiece, moving road, narrow, narrows, navigable river, neck,
     newsmonger, noise, notifier, ocean bottom, opening, out, outcome,
     outfall, outgate, outgo, outlet, overpass, pass, passage,
     passageway, path, pipe, pipeline, pleat, plow, police band, pore,
     port, portico, press, public relations officer, publisher,
     put through, put through channels, rabbet, race, racing stream,
     radio, radio channel, railroad tunnel, redundancy, reporter, rifle,
     river, rivulet, road, run, rundle, runlet, runnel, rut, sally port,
     score, scratch, sea lane, seaway, ship route, shortwave band,
     signal, sike, siphon, slit, sluice, source, spill stream, spiracle,
     spokesman, spout, standard band, steamer track, strait, streak,
     stream, stream action, streamlet, striate, subterranean river,
     sunk fence, tap, television, teller, throat, tipster, tout,
     traject, trajet, transmit, trench, trough, tube, tunnel, underpass,
     vent, ventage, venthole, vomitory, wadi, watercourse, waterway,
     way, way out, weir, witness, wrinkle
  
  

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  channel n. [IRC] The basic unit of discussion on {IRC}. Once one joins
     a channel, everything one types is read by others on that channel.
     Channels are named with strings that begin with a `#' sign and can have
     topic descriptions (which are generally irrelevant to the actual subject
     of discussion). Some notable channels are `#initgame', `#hottub',
     `callahans', and `#report'. At times of international crisis, `#report'
     has hundreds of members, some of whom take turns listening to various
     news services and typing in summaries of the news, or in some cases,
     giving first-hand accounts of the action (e.g., Scud missile attacks in
     Tel Aviv during the Gulf War in 1991).
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  channel
       
           (Or "chat room", "room", depending on the system in
          question) The basic unit of group discussion in {chat} systems
          like {IRC}.  Once one joins a channel, everything one types is
          read by others on that channel.  Channels can either be named
          with numbers or with strings that begin with a "#" sign and
          can have topic descriptions (which are generally irrelevant to
          the actual subject of discussion).
       
          Some notable channels are "#initgame", "#hottub" and
          "#report".  At times of international crisis, "#report" has
          hundreds of members, some of whom take turns listening to
          various news services and typing in summaries of the news, or
          in some cases, giving first-hand accounts of the action
          (e.g. Scud missile attacks in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War in
          1991).
       
          [{Jargon File}]
       
          (1998-01-25)
       
       

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Channel
     (1.) The bed of the sea or of a river (Ps. 18:15; Isa. 8:7).
     
       (2.) The "chanelbone" (Job 31:22 marg.), properly "tube" or
     "shaft," an old term for the collar-bone.