• IPA: /ˈkæn.vəs/
• (America)

canvas (plural canvasses) (see usage notes)

1. A type of coarse cloth, woven from hemp, useful for making sails and tents or as a surface for paintings.
   • 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 4, p. 556.

     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 canvas cloth stretched across a frame on which one may paint.
3. A basis for creative work.

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

4. (computer graphics) A region on which graphics can be rendered.
5. (nautical) Sails in general.
6. A tent.

   He spent the night under canvas.

7. A painting, or a picture on canvas.
   • 18, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 13, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify ), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, OCLC 1069526323 ↗:

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. Alternative spelling of canvass.

• French: toile
• German: Leinen, Segeltuch; (specialist also) Canvas
• Italian: canovaccio, tela
• Portuguese: lona
• Russian: холст
• Spanish: lona

• French: toile, canevas
• German: Leinwand
• Italian: tela
• Portuguese: tela
• Russian: холст
• Spanish: (fabric and backing) lienzo, (fabric only) tela

canvas (canvases, present participle canvasing; past and past participle canvased)

1. To cover an area or object with canvas.
2. Alternative spelling of canvass.

• French: toiler, entoiler
• Italian: intelare