Canon

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

in its original sense, a cane or reed used as a measure or rule. Specifically, a law or rule in general. In ecclesiastical history a canon is a book containing the rules of a religious order used in monastic institutions. A list or catalogue of the canonized saints of the Roman Catholic Church. A dignitary of the Church; one who possesses a prebend, or revenue allotted for the performance of divine service in a cathedral or collegiate church. The order of regular canons of St. Augustine was spared at the time of the Reformation, and it continues in the Anglican Church to the present day. They are still nominally what they once actually were the council of the bishop for the administration of the affairs of his diocese and they constitute the chapter of the body known as_the Dean and Chapter. In music a Canon is a vocal composition consisting of two, three, or four parts, in which the several voices begin at fixed intervals consecutively; sometimes each voice commences with the same, sometimes with different notes. In printing a canon is a kind of large type principally used in posting bills. It was used for printing the canons of the Church, whence its name. CAÑON (kan'yon), the Spanish word for tube, ube, funnel, cannon; applied by the Spanish Americans, and hence in North America generally, to long and narrow river gorges or deep ravines with precipitous and almost perpendicular sides, occurring frequently in the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and great western plateaus of North America.