Definition of "canalise"

canalise

/ˈkæn.ə.laɪz/

verb
third-person singular simple present canalises, present participle canalising, simple past and past participle canalised
1. (transitive, British spelling) To convert (a river or other waterway) into a canal.
  Quotations
  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. (transitive, British spelling) To build a canal through.
3. (transitive, British spelling) To channel the flow of.
  Quotations
  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
  ...yet it is always a wise precaution in defending a frontier of hundreds of miles to bar off as much as possible by fortifications, and thus economise the use of troops in sedentary roles and "canalise" potential invasion.
  1948, Sir Winston Churchill, The Second World War: The Gathering Storm, page 373