channel

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The bed of a stream or river.
2. n. The deeper part of a river or harbor, especially a deep navigable passage.
3. n. A broad strait, especially one that connects two seas.
4. n. A trench, furrow, or groove.
5. n. A tubular passage for liquids; a conduit.
6. n. A course or pathway through which information is transmitted: new channels of thought; a reliable channel of information.
7. n. A route of communication or access. Often used in the plural: took her request through official channels.
8. n. In communications theory, a gesture, action, sound, written or spoken word, or visual image used in transmitting information.
9. n. Electronics A specified frequency band for the transmission and reception of electromagnetic signals, as for television signals.
10. n. Computer Science A site on a network, as on IRC, where online conversations are held in real time by a number of computer users.
11. n. The medium through which a spirit guide purportedly communicates with the physical world.
12. n. A rolled metal bar with a bracket-shaped section.
13. n. A temporary opening in a cell membrane that allows ions or molecules to pass into or out of the cell.
14. v. To make or cut channels in.
15. v. To form a groove or flute in.
16. v. To direct or guide along some desired course: channels her curiosity into research.
17. v. To serve as a medium for (a spirit guide).
18. n. Nautical A wood or steel ledge projecting from a sailing ship's sides to spread the shrouds and keep them clear of the gunwales.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The bed of a stream of water; the hollow or course in which a stream flows.
2. n. The deeper part of a river, or of an estuary, bay, etc., where the current flows, or which is most convenient for the track of a ship.
3. n. As specifically applied in certain cases: A part of the sea constituting a passageway between a continent and an island, or between two islands; a strait: as, the English channel, between France and England, leading to the strait of Dover; St. George's channel, between Great Britain and Ireland, leading to the Irish sea; the Mozambique channel. A wide arm of the sea extending a considerable distance inland: as, Bristol channel in England.
4. n. That by which something passes or is transmitted; means of passing, conveying, transmitting, reaching, or gaining: as, the news was conveyed to us by different channels; channels of influence.
5. n. The trough used to conduct molten metal from a furnace to the molds.
6. n. A furrow or groove.
7. n. Specifically— The cut or depression in the sole of a shoe in which the thread is sunk. A groove cut in a stone in the line along which it is to be split. In architecture, one of a series of shallow vertical curved furrows, of elliptical section, of which each is separated from that adjoining only by a sharp edge or arris. The channel is distinguished from the flute, of which the section is an arc of a circle, and is a characteristic feature of shafts of the Doric order.
8. n. The wind-pipe; the throat.
9. n. The hollow between the two nether jaw-bones of a horse, where the tongue is lodged.
10. To form or cut a channel or channels in; groove.
11. n. In ship-building, a plank of considerable thickness bolted edgewise to a vessel's side, nearly abreast of a mast, and serving to extend the shrouds of the lower rigging and keep them clear of the gunwale, the chain-plates being carried through notches on its outer edge. Also called chain-wale and channel-board.
12. n. Gravel.
13. n. A tubular passage or duct, such as the pancreatic duct, for liquids or fluids: as, the poison channel of a snake's fangs. Sometimes called canal.

Wiktionary

1. n. nautical The wale of a sailing ship which projects beyond the gunwale and to which the shrouds attach via the chains.
2. n. The physical confine of a river or slough, consisting of a bed and banks.
3. n. The natural or man-made deeper course through a reef, bar, bay, or any shallow body of water.
4. n. The navigable part of a river.
5. n. A narrow body of water between two land masses.
6. n. electronics A connection between initiating and terminating nodes of a circuit.
7. n. electronics The narrow conducting portion of a MOSFET transistor.
8. n. communication The part that connects a data source to a data sink.
9. n. communication A path for conveying electrical or electromagnetic signals, usually distinguished from other parallel paths.
10. n. communication A single path provided by a transmission medium via physical separation, such as by multipair cable.
11. n. communication A single path provided by a transmission medium via spectral or protocol separation, such as by frequency or time-division multiplexing.
12. n. broadcasting A specific radio frequency or band of frequencies, usually in conjunction with a predetermined letter, number, or codeword, and allocated by international agreement.
13. n. broadcasting A specific radio frequency or band of frequencies used for transmitting television.
14. n. storage The portion of a storage medium, such as a track or a band, that is accessible to a given reading or writing station or head.
15. n. technic The way in a turbine pump where the pressure is built up.
16. n. business, marketing A distribution channel
17. n. Internet A particular area for conversations on an IRC network, analogous to a chatroom and often dedicated to a specific topic.
18. n. Internet An obsolete means of delivering up-to-date Internet content.
19. v. To direct the flow of something.
20. v. To assume the personality of another person, typically a historic figure, in a theatrical or paranormal presentation.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The hollow bed where a stream of water runs or may run.
2. n. 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. n. (Geog.) A strait, or narrow sea, between two portions of lands.
4. n. That through which anything passes; a means of passing, conveying, or transmitting.
5. n. A gutter; a groove, as in a fluted column.
6. n. (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. n. official routes of communication, especially the official means by which information should be transmitted in a bureaucracy.
8. n. 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.
9. n. 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.
10. n. (Cell biology) an opening in a cell membrane which serves to actively transport or allow passive transport of substances across the membrane.
11. n. (Computers) a path for transmission of signals between devices within a computer or between a computer and an external device.
12. v. To form a channel in; to cut or wear a channel or channels in; to groove.
13. v. To course through or over, as in a channel.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a path over which electrical signals can pass
2. n. a television station and its programs
3. v. transmit or serve as the medium for transmission
4. v. direct the flow of
5. n. (often plural) a means of communication or access
6. n. 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)
7. n. 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
8. n. a bodily passage or tube lined with epithelial cells and conveying a secretion or other substance
9. n. a way of selling a company's product either directly or via distributors
10. v. send from one person or place to another
11. n. a passage for water (or other fluids) to flow through