Forms: 6 canvace, 7 -uasse, -uase, -vase, 7–8 canvas, 7– canvass. [f. prec. vb., the spelling of which it retains.]
† 1. A shaking up; a tossing up and down. Obs.
1611. Cotgr., Demenée … a tumble tosse, canuasse.
† 2. A shock; esp. that of a sudden attack or surprise. Cf. CANVASADO.
1611. Cotgr., Camisade, a camisado, canuas, or cold Pie; a suddain assaulting, or surprisall of the enemie.
1627. E. F., Hist. Edw. II. (1680), 69. Levies … sufficient to give a Canvas to the Royal Army.
† b. In Fencing. = CANVASADO 3. Obs.
a. 1641. Bp. Mountagu, Acts & Mon. (1642), 184. For it is the sorest canvase that can be giuen an opposite, to beat him at his owne weapon.
† 3. Repulse, rejection (e.g., at an election, in a suit). Phrase, To have or receive the canvass. Obs.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. ii. III. xi. (1651), 113. If he chance to miss, and have a canvas, he is in hell on the other side. Ibid., II. iii. VII. (1651), 352. But why shouldst thou take thy neglect, thy Canvas so to heart? It may be thou art not fit.
1652. Shirley, Brothers, II. i. 14. I ha’ promis’d him As much as mariage comes too, and I lose My honor, if my Don receive the canvas.
† 4. Examination of the ‘pros and cons’; full discussion. ? Obs.
1608–11. Bp. Hall, Epist., V. iv. (1627), 369. Learned canuases of the deepe points of diuinitie.
a. 1687. H. More, Pre-exist. Soul, Pref. I deem it worthy the canvass and discussion of sober and considerate men.
5. The action or process of personally soliciting votes before an election; including the notion of ascertaining the amount of support which a candidate may count upon. (Johnson makes it ‘The act of sifting voices, or trying them previously to the decisive act of voting,’ but of this, apart from the actual solicitation of votes, there is no clear evidence. The first quot. is obscure, and may belong elsewhere, e.g., to CANVAS sb. 6.)
[1612. Bacon, Cunning, Ess. (Arb.), 435. There are some that are good in Canuasses & factions, that are otherwise weake men.]
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., I./846. In the election … was the greatest canvas … in the memory of Man.
1788. Ld. Sheffield, in Ld. Auckland’s Corr. (1861), II. 222. In short their success on the canvass quite astonished them.
1791. Mackintosh, Parl. Suffrage, Wks. 1846, III. 229. Candidates and their … agents in every street during an active canvass.
1844. Disraeli, Coningsby, V. iv. 201. The results of the two canvasses were such as had been anticipated.
attrib. 1881. Daily News, 21 Jan., 5/4. It had never been their custom to preserve canvass books.
6. A solicitation of support, custom, etc.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 220–1. The other mode of ecclesiastical canvas subjects them [bishoprics and cures] infinitely more surely and more generally to all the evil arts of low ambition.
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., 78. One gentleman procured me nearly a hundred names for The Friend and … took frequent opportunity to remind me of his success in his canvass.
1846. Prescott, Ferd. & Is., I. vi. 290. Honours, which had before been … made the subject of a furious canvass.
