channels

1. official routes of communicationExamples: "you have to go through channels"Synonyms: channels

2. a path over which electrical signals can passExamples: "a channel is typically what you rent from a telephone company"Synonyms: channel, transmission channel

3. a passage for water (or other fluids) to flow throughExamples: "the fields were crossed with irrigation channels"; "gutters carried off the rainwater into a series of channels under the street"Synonyms: channel

4. a long narrow furrow cut either by a natural process (such as erosion) or by a tool (as e.g. a groove in a phonograph record)Synonyms: channel, groove

5. a deep and relatively narrow body of water (as in a river or a harbor or a strait linking two larger bodies) that allows the best passage for vesselsExamples: "the ship went aground in the channel"Synonyms: channel

6. (often plural) a means of communication or accessExamples: "it must go through official channels"; "lines of communication were set up between the two firms"Synonyms: channel, communication channel, line