1. [n]  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"
2. [n]  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. [n]  a television station and its programs; "a satellite TV channel"; "surfing through the channels"; "they offer more than one hundred channels"
4. [n]  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"
5. [n]  a path over which electrical signals can pass; "a channel is typically what you rent from a telephone company"
6. [n]  (often plural) a means of communication or access; "it must go through official channels"; "lines of communication were set up between the two firms"
7. [n]  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"
8. [n]  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)
9. [v]  send from one person or place to another; "transmit a message"
10. [v]  direct the flow of; also used abstractly, as of money or information
11. [v]  transmit or serve as the medium for transmission, as of sounds or images; "Sound carries well over water"; "The airwaves carry the sound"; "Many metals conduct heat"

1. \Chan"nel\, n. [OE. chanel, canel, OF. chanel, F.
   chenel, fr. L. canalis. See {Canal}.]
   1. The hollow bed where a stream of water runs or may run.
   2. The deeper part of a river, harbor, strait, etc., where
      the main current flows, or which affords the best and
      safest passage for vessels.
   3. (Geog.) A strait, or narrow sea, between two portions of
      lands; as, the British Channel.
   4. That through which anything passes; means of passing,
      conveying, or transmitting; as, the news was conveyed to
      us by different channels.
            The veins are converging channels.    --Dalton.
            At best, he is but a channel to convey to the
            National assembly such matter as may import that
            body to know.                         --Burke.
   5. A gutter; a groove, as in a fluted column.
   6. pl. [Cf. {Chain wales}.] (Naut.) Flat ledges of heavy
      plank bolted edgewise to the outside of a vessel, to
      increase the spread of the shrouds and carry them clear of
      the bulwarks.
   {Channel bar}, {Channel iron} (Arch.), an iron bar or beam
      having a section resembling a flat gutter or channel.
   {Channel bill} (Zo["o]l.), a very large Australian cuckoo
      ({Scythrops Nov[ae]hollandi[ae]}.
   {Channel goose}. (Zo["o]l.) See {Gannet}.
   

2. \Chan"nel\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Channeled}, or
   {Channelled}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Channeling}, or
   {Channelling}.]
   1. To form a channel in; to cut or wear a channel or channels
      in; to groove.
            No more shall trenching war channel her fields.
                                                  --Shak.
   2. To course through or over, as in a channel. --Cowper.
   

(Or "chat room", "room", depending on the system in question) The basic unit of group discussion in chat systems like IRC. Once one joins a channel, everything one types is read by others on that channel. Channels can either be named with numbers or with strings that begin with a "#" sign and can have topic descriptions (which are generally irrelevant to the actual subject of discussion).

Some notable channels are "#initgame", "#hottub" and "#report". At times of international crisis, "#report" has hundreds of members, some of whom take turns listening to various news services and typing in summaries of the news, or in some cases, giving first-hand accounts of the action (e.g. Scud missile attacks in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War in 1991).

[Jargon File]

1. The space above the bed and between banks occupied by a stream.
2. Natural or artificial waterway of perceptible extent that periodically or continuously contains moving water. It has a definite bed and banks that serve to confine water. (River, stream, creek, run, branch, anabranch, and tributary are some of the terms used to describe natural channels. Canal, ditch, and floodway are some of the terms used to describe artificial channels.)

(1.) The bed of the sea or of a river (Ps. 18:15; Isa. 8:7).

(2.) The "chanelbone" (Job 31:22 marg.), properly "tube" or "shaft," an old term for the collar-bone.