canvas-back
[f. canvas n. + back n.1]
1. A back of a garment made of canvas; hence fig. a reverse much inferior to the front.
| 1605 Lond. Prodigal iii. i. 243 My father in a mocado coat a pair of red satin sleeves and a canvas back. 1668 Child Disc. Trade (ed. 4) 10 Many..would not go to the price of a whole satten doublet; the embroiderer made many hundreds of them..with canvas backs. a 1734 North Exam. i. ii. ¶83, I thought it reasonable to bid Defiance to this bold Traducer, and turning him round, shew his Canvas Back. |
2. A North American duck (
Fuligula valisneriana), so called from the colour of the back feathers. Called also more fully
canvas-back duck, and
canvas-backed duck.
| 1785 Jefferson Notes Virginia vi. 130 Besides these [birds] we have..The Widgeon, Sheldrach, or Canvas back, Black head. 1809 W. Irving Hist. N.Y. II. 282 The gastronomical merits of..canvas-back ducks. a 1813 A. Wilson Foresters, Four large ducks..The far-famed ‘canvass-backs’. 1832 Blackw. Mag. May 846/2 The canvass-back stands alone. Ibid. The man who has feasted on canvass-back ducks, cannot philosophically be said to have lived in vain. 1859 Helps Friends in C. Ser. ii. I. i. 20 He had never tasted a canvas-back duck. |
| 1842 Dickens Amer. Notes (1850) 79/1 The water in both was blackened with flights of canvas-backed ducks. |