"a channel is typically what you rent from a telephone company"
2. a passage for water (or other fluids) to flow through;
"the fields were crossed with irrigation channels"
"gutters carried off the rainwater into a series of channels under the street"
3. 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)
4. 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 vessels;
"the ship went aground in the channel"
5. (often plural) a means of communication or access;
"it must go through official channels"
"lines of communication were set up between the two firms"
6. a bodily passage or tube lined with epithelial cells and conveying a secretion or other substance;
"the tear duct was obstructed"
"the alimentary canal"
"poison is released through a channel in the snake's fangs"
7. a television station and its programs;
"a satellite TV channel"
"surfing through the channels"
"they offer more than one hundred channels"
8. a way of selling a company's product either directly or via distributors;
"possible distribution channels are wholesalers or small retailers or retail chains or direct mailers or your own stores"