canal vs channel

canal

noun
  • An artificial waterway or artificially improved river used for travel, shipping, or irrigation. 

  • A tubular channel within the body. 

  • One of the faint, hazy markings resembling straight lines on early telescopic images of the surface of Mars. 

verb
  • To dig an artificial waterway in or to (a place), especially for drainage 

  • To travel along a canal by boat 

channel

noun
  • The navigable part of a river. 

  • A distribution channel 

  • The wale of a sailing ship which projects beyond the gunwale and to which the shrouds attach via the chains. One of the 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. 

  • A gutter; a groove, as in a fluted column. 

  • A single path provided by a transmission medium via physical separation, such as by multipair cable. 

  • A single path provided by a transmission medium via spectral or protocol separation, such as by frequency or time-division multiplexing. 

  • A specific radio frequency or band of frequencies used for transmitting television. 

  • The physical confine of a river or slough, consisting of a bed and banks. 

  • A means of delivering up-to-date Internet content. 

  • A channel was dredged to allow ocean-going vessels to reach the city. 

  • A path for conveying electrical or electromagnetic signals, usually distinguished from other parallel paths. 

  • The part of a turbine pump where the pressure is built up. 

  • A narrow body of water between two land masses. 

  • A particular area for conversations on an IRC network, analogous to a chat room and often dedicated to a specific topic. 

  • Something through which another thing passes; a means of conveying or transmitting. 

  • A connection between initiating and terminating nodes of a circuit. 

  • The natural or man-made deeper course through a reef, bar, bay, or any shallow body of water. 

  • The part that connects a data source to a data sink. 

  • A structural member with a cross section shaped like a squared-off letter C. 

  • A specific radio frequency or band of frequencies, usually in conjunction with a predetermined letter, number, or codeword, and allocated by international agreement. 

  • 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. 

  • A psychic or medium who temporarily takes on the personality of somebody else. 

  • The narrow conducting portion of a MOSFET transistor. 

verb
  • To direct or guide along a desired course. 

  • To follow as a model, especially in a performance. 

  • To make or cut a channel or groove in. 

  • To serve as a medium for. 

How often have the words canal and channel occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )