channel

pronunciation

How to pronounce channel in British English: UK [ˈtʃænl] word uk audio image

How to pronounce channel in American English: US [ˈtʃænl] word us audio image

Noun:

a path over which electrical signals can pass
a passage for water (or other fluids) to flow through
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)
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
(often plural) a means of communication or access
a bodily passage or tube lined with epithelial cells and conveying a secretion or other substance
a television station and its programs
a way of selling a company's product either directly or via distributors
Verb:

transmit or serve as the medium for transmission
direct the flow of
send from one person or place to another

Word Origin

channel: channel: [13] Channel and canal are ultimately the same word. Their common ancestor was Latin canālis ‘groove, channel’, a derivative of canna ‘pipe’ (source of English cane). This passed into Old French as chanel, which English took over as channel. But then in the 15th century English acquired canal, either directly from Latin, or from French canal, which was itself remodelled on the Latin form – it is not clear which.=> canal, cane

channel (v.): 1590s, "to wear channels in," from channel (n.). Meaning "convey in a channel" is from 1640s. Related: Channeled; channeling.

channel (n.): early 14c., "bed of running water," from Old French chanel "bed of a waterway; tube, pipe, gutter," from Latin canalis "groove, channel, waterpipe" (see canal). Given a broader, figurative sense 1530s (of information, commerce, etc.); meaning "circuit for telegraph communication" (1848) probably led to that of "band of frequency for radio or TV signals" (1928). English Channel is from 1825; the older name was British Channel (by 1730). John of Trevisa's Middle English translation of the encyclopedia De Proprietatibus Rerum (c. 1398) has frensshe see for "English Channel." The Channel Islands are the French Îles Anglo-Normandes.