Canvased

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Looked through or examined a place or group carefully to find someone or something ; requested opinions or support from people, often for a cause or election
2. Conducted a careful exploration or inspection to locate or identify specifics ; sought out feedback or votes by speaking directly with individuals
3. Performed a detailed search by visiting or scrutinizing locations ; actively gathered ideas or endorsements from a community or audience

Etymology: "Canvased" is simply the past tense and past participle of "canvas" in its sense of seeking votes or public opinion, so the story belongs to that verb. The verb is a variant of "canvass," and the two spellings are interchangeable here. Both trace back to the same cloth: "canvas" comes from Middle English "canevas," borrowed from Anglo-Norman, which descends from Old Northern French "canevas," ultimately from a root tied to Latin "cannabis," the hemp plant. The fabric was woven from hemp, so the word is a doublet of "cannabis" and "hemp." The political sense is the surprising part. A cloth was a surface you could go over thread by thread, and the verb carries that image of going methodically from door to door or person to person. The "canvas" spelling is the variant, so "canvased" is the form many dictionaries treat as secondary to "canvassed."

Synonyms: surveyed, polled