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canvas Definition

can·vas (kan′vəs)

noun

  1. a closely woven, coarse cloth of hemp, cotton, or linen, often unbleached, used for tents, sails, etc.
  2. a sail or set of sails
    1. a specially prepared piece of canvas on which an oil painting is made
    2. such a painting
  4. a tent or tents, esp. circus tents
  5. any coarse cloth of open mesh weave on which embroidery or tapestry is done

Etymology: ME & OFr canevas < It canavaccio < VL *cannapaceum, hempen cloth < L cannabis, hemp

canvas Idioms

the canvas

the canvas-covered floor of a boxing ring

under canvas

  1. in tents
  2. with sails unfurled
  3. by means of sails
canvas Synonyms

canvas

n.

  1. A coarse cloth

    tenting, awning cloth, sailcloth, duck, coarse cloth, drill; see also cloth.

  2. Anything made of canvas

    sail, tent, shade, waterproof, fly, tarpaulin, tarp*, boxing ring, ring; see also awning, cover 1, tent.

  3. A painting on canvas

    oil painting, portrait, still life, oil; see art 3, painting 1.

canvas Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • stretch: At last we returned to a white canvas stretched over a wall.
  • paint: Over 400 people came to Chiswick town hall to paint a canvas & £ 3000 was raised which we donated to the DEC.
  • prime: Much of the foreground is dominated only by primed canvas.

Adjective modifier

  • stretched: These works comprise stretched raw canvas soaked with motor oil which causes the support to slowly decay.
  • blank: Faced with the blank canvas of a new iMac, I asked my pal Chris what widgets I should download.
  • six-foot: This major exhibition offers the first opportunity to view John Constable's seminal six-foot exhibition canvases together.
  • chunky: Available mounted and framed, or glicee printed onto large chunky canvases which are best when grouped together.
  • painted: The brightly colored front turned out to be a painted canvas.
  • textured: SONGWRITING Putting pen to paper is like letting my soul spill out onto the textured canvas of the universe.

Modifies a noun

  • dimension: Materials: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 34.7 x 56cm Acquisition: Presented to the gallery by Mrs L. Gordon, Tranby Lodge.
  • awning: It had a deep end and a shallow end and incorporated changing rooms, the whole covered in by a canvas awning.
  • widget: That said, some GUI toolkits provide an OpenGL canvas widget which Maverik can use as its rendering window.
  • tent: The much awaited rest however didn't come, we had to put up a 6 man canvas tent in 20 minutes.
  • print: Upon receipt of the photo, your canvas print will arrive within 1 week.
  • bag: Cost of shipping to Europe via airmail: £ 10.00 for a single canvas bag or £ 13.00 for a single leather bag.

Noun used with modifier

  • cotton: Gift ideas for men include a stylish overnight bag in cotton canvas.
  • tapestry: This method can be used for needlepoint canvas and tapestry canvas as a guide.
  • linen: For an ultra-realistic effect I imagine you would need a fine-grain linen canvas.
  • duck: We use the finest English Cotton Duck canvas and specialty Primer.
  • inch: It is a triptych piece consisting of two 16x20 inch canvases and one 16x16 inch canvas.
canvas Quotes

All my life I've beenworking on the worköevery canvas a sentence or paragraph of it. Each picture is onlyan approximation of what I want.

—Motherwell, Robert

La volaille est pour la cuisine ce qu'est la toile pour les peintres. Fowls are to the kitchen what his canvas is to the painter.

—Brillat-Savarin,Jean Anthelme

The canvas was always saying no to me.

—Bearden, Romare

At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to actörather than as a space in which to reproduce, re-design, analyze or 'express'an object, actual or imagined.What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.

—Rosenberg, Harold

Launch your vessel, And crowd your canvas, And, ere it vanishes Over the margin, After it, follow it, FollowThe Gleam.

—Tennyson

Dal |¤ 's importance for the Surrealists at that time, and for art historians now, is that he found a way to put Freud on canvas.

—Schwartz, Sanford

To create is first of all to destroy†there is and can be no such thing as authentic art until the bons trucs (whereby we are taught to see and imitate on canvas and in stone and by words this so-called world) are entirely and

—cummings, e e pen name of  Edward Estlin Cummings

Browse dictionary entries near canvas

  1. ‹ Canute
  2. ‹ Canuck
  3. ‹ canty
  4. ‹ cantus firmus
  5. ‹ cantus
  6. ‹ cantrip
  7. ‹ cantor
  8. ‹ cantonment
  9. ‹ Cantonese
  10. ‹ Canton flannel
  1. canvasback ›
  2. canvass ›
  3. canvasser ›
  4. canyon ›
  5. canzone ›
  6. canzonet ›
  7. caoutchouc ›
  8. cap ›
  9. cap-a-pie ›
  10. cap and bells ›