 7 definitions found
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
channel
noun
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}]
verb
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 The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Channel \Chan"nel\ (ch[a^]n"n[e^]l), noun [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.
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.
3. (Geog.) A strait, or narrow sea, between two portions of
lands; as, the British Channel.
4. That through which anything passes; a means of passing,
conveying, or transmitting; as, the news was conveyed to
us by different channels.
The veins are converging channels. --Dalton.
At best, he is but a channel to convey to the
National assembly such matter as may import that
body to know. --Burke.
5. A gutter; a groove, as in a fluted column.
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.
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} (Zo["o]l.), a very large Australian cuckoo
({Scythrops Nov[ae]hollandi[ae]}.
{Channel goose}. (Zo["o]l.) See {Gannet}.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Channel \Chan"nel\, verb (used with an object) [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.
No more shall trenching war channel her fields.
--Shak.
2. To course through or over, as in a channel. --Cowper.
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.
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