Other forms: canvases
Canvas is the strong cloth stretched on a frame for a painter to work on. Oil on canvas, a blank canvas, paint on canvas.
A canvas is also the finished painting itself — an early canvas, three canvases in the show. The same cloth makes tents, sails, deck chairs and shoes, and under canvas means camping in a tent. A blank canvas is the standard metaphor for an untouched opportunity. Note the spelling against canvass with two esses, which is a different word meaning to go round asking for votes or opinions.
1nouncanvasThe strong cloth a painter works on.
“The canvas had been stretched badly and it showed.”
2nounfinishedA finished painting.
“There were nine canvases in the whole exhibition.”
3nounheavyHeavy cloth used for tents and sails.
“They spent the whole week under canvas.”
canvas is a heavy cloth, or a painting.
Latin cannabis meant hemp — canvas was originally hemp cloth. The Greek word for the plant gives both the drug's modern name and the painter's surface, which are the same word arriving in English by different routes.
Ancient Greek
κάνναβις
Latin
cannabis
fro-nor
canevas
Middle English
canevas
English, today
canvas
From Middle English canevas, from Anglo-Norman -, from fro-nor canevas (compare Old French chanevas, chenevas) from a root derived from Latin cannabis, from Ancient Greek κάνναβις. Compare French canevas, resulting from a blend of the Old French and a Picard dialect word, itself from Old Northern French. a doublet of cannabis and hemp.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
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