[L., a. Gr. Κάνωπος.]
1. The bright star α in the southern constellation Argo, situated in the rudder of the ship.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind. (Arb.), 278. When these are hydden, there is seene on the lefte syde a bryght Canopus of three starres of notable greatnesse…. In the myddest of these is seene an other bryght Canopus.
1830. Tennyson, Dream Fair Wom., 146. We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit Lamps which out-burn’d Canopus.
2. = Canopic vase.
1836. Penny Cycl., VI. 244/2. Canopus is also the name of an Egyptian jar.
1857. Birch, Anc. Pottery (1858), II. 204. The canopos or jar resembling those in which the Egyptians placed the entrails of their mummies. Ibid. (1873), 593.
