different between canvas vs burlap

English

Etymology

From Middle English canevas, from Anglo-Norman, from Old Northern French canevas (compare Old French chanevas, chenevas) from a root derived from Latin cannabis, from Ancient Greek ???????? (kánnabis). Compare French canevas, resulting from a blend of the Old French and a Picard dialect word, itself from Old Northern French. Doublet of cannabis and hemp.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kæn.v?s/
• (US)
• Homophone: canvass

Noun

canvas (plural canvasses or canvases) (see usage notes)

1. A type of coarse cloth, woven from hemp, useful for making sails and tents or as a surface for paintings.
   • 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 4, p. 556.

     The term canvas is very widely used, as well to denote the coarse fabrics employed for kitchen use, as for strainers, and wraps for meat, as for the best quality of ordinary table and shirting linen.

2. A piece of canvas cloth stretched across a frame on which one may paint.
3. A mesh of loosely woven cotton strands or molded plastic to be decorated with needlepoint, cross-stitch, rug hooking, or other crafts.
4. (figuratively) A basis for creative work.

   The author takes rural midwestern life as a canvas for a series of tightly woven character studies.

5. (computer graphics) A region on which graphics can be rendered.
6. (nautical) Sails in general.
7. A tent.

   He spent the night under canvas.

8. A painting, or a picture on canvas.
   • 1764, Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller

     The canvas glowed, beyond e'en nature warm
9. A rough draft or model of a song, air, or other literary or musical composition; especially one to show a poet the measure of the verses he is to make.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Grabb to this entry?)

10. Alternative spelling of canvass.

Usage notes

The plural canvases is used primarily in the US, while the plural canvasses is used in the UK and most UK-influenced areas.

Derived terms

• Canvastown

Translations

Verb

canvas (third-person singular simple present canvases, present participle canvasing, simple past and past participle canvased)

1. To cover an area or object with canvas.
2. Alternative spelling of canvass.

Translations

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch canevas, from Old Northern French canevas, from Latin cannabis, from Ancient Greek ???????? (kánnabis). The spelling was lated influenced by English canvas.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?n.v?s/
• Hyphenation: can?vas

Noun

canvas n (plural canvassen)

1. canvas, sail

   Synonym: zeildoek

2. canvas, fabric used for painting

   Synonym: schilderdoek

Related terms

• cannabis

Descendants

• ? Indonesian: kampas

Spanish

Noun

canvas m

1. canvas

English

Etymology

Origin uncertain. Attested since about 1695 in the spelling bore-lap, borelapp. Likely from burel (“a coarse woollen cloth”) +? lap (“flap of a garment”), where the first element is from Middle English burel, borel. Others feel that "its character and time of appearance makes a Dutch origin very likely" (and the earliest references as to its importation from the Netherlands); the NED suggests derivation from Dutch boenlap (“coarse, rubbing linen or cloth”) with the first element perhaps confused with boer; Bense instead suggests derivation from an unattested Dutch *boerenlap, where *boeren supposedly has an extended sense of "coarse" as in Dutch boerenkost (“coarse, heavy food as is eaten by farmers”) and boerengoed (from Dutch boer (“farmer, peasant”); compare English boor), though this word is not attested.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?b?læp/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?b??læp/

Noun

burlap (countable and uncountable, plural burlaps)

1. (US) A very strong, coarse cloth, made from jute, flax, or hemp, and used to make sacks, etc.

   Synonyms: (UK) hessian, (Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago) crocus

Translations

Verb

burlap (third-person singular simple present burlaps, present participle burlapping, simple past and past participle burlapped)

1. (transitive) To wrap or cover in burlap.

See also

• sackcloth

References