canalise

Verb

canalise (third-person singular simple present canalises, present participle canalising, simple past and past participle canalised)

1. (UK, transitive) To convert (a river or other waterway) into a canal.
   • . . . owing to the recent commencement of works about to be carried on on a large scale to improve and canalise the navigation of the Ebro . . .1854, David Thomas Ansted, Scenery, Science and Art: being extracts from the note-book of a geologist and mining engineer
   • Under Advance Brazil, the government plans to pave over 7000 kilometres of new Amazonian highways, canalise vast rivers and construct dozens of railways, […]2005, New Science Publications, New scientist, volume 188
2. (UK, transitive) To build a canal through.
3. (UK, transitive) To channel the flow of.
   • On the desk lay the final version of the Birth Control speech, mastered and canalized by the skilful Maisie.1927, Edith Wharton, Twilight Sleep, London: Virago, published 1996, page 221
   • The workers' militias, based on the trade unions and each composed of people of approximately the same political opinions, had the effect of canalizing into one place all the most revolutionary sentiment in the country.1938 April, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter VIII, in Homage to Catalonia, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC