Chan·nel n.
 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.  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.
 Channel bar, Channel iron Arch., an iron bar or beam having a section resembling a flat gutter or channel.
 Channel bill Zool., a very large Australian cuckoo (Scythrops Novæhollandiæ.
 Channel goose. Zool. See Gannet.