Channel

1. n. 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.
2. n. The hollow bed where a stream of water runs or may run.
3. n. The deeper part of a river, harbor, strait, etc., where the main current flows, or which affords the best and safest passage for vessels.
4. n. A strait, or narrow sea, between two portions of lands; as, the British Channel.
5. n. That through which anything passes; means of passing, conveying, or transmitting; as, the news was conveyed to us by different channels.
6. n. A gutter; a groove, as in a fluted column.

The word meanings were obtained from OPTED(The Online Plain Text English Dictionary), which is based on “The Project Gutenberg Etext of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary” which is in turn based on the 1913 US Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (See Project Gutenburg), as a text file.