Channels

How to spell channels

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce channels

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does channels mean?

1. nounPlural of channel: paths, passages or means through which something flows, travels or is communicated.
2. verbThird-person singular of channel: directs or guides something along a particular course.

Channels in a sentence

• noun

  The streaming subscription includes over two hundred channels.

• verb

  She channels most of her free time into the local choir.

• noun

  Narrow irrigation channels carry water across the dry fields.

• verb

  The dam channels the river toward the power station.

Where does channels come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin canalis, meaning a 'pipe', 'groove' or 'water conduit', which was itself formed from canna, 'reed' or 'cane', since a split reed makes a natural little trough. Roman engineers used canalis for the channels that carried water, and the sense of a guided flow has clung to the word ever since. It passed into Old French as chanel before entering English in the 1200s, originally describing the bed of a river or a stretch of sea between coasts. Over time it broadened to mean any route along which something travels, from irrigation ditches to television frequencies and business supply routes. The same canalis root also gives us the more transparent 'canal', and noticing that pair helps fix the spelling: channels keeps the doubled n but only a single l in its base form.

How the word is built

• chan(n)- (from Latin canalis: pipe, groove)
• -el (noun ending)
• -s (plural / third-person verb)