Canʹopy

properly means a gnat curtain. Herodʹotus tells us (ii. 95) that the fishermen of the Nile used to lift their nets on a pole, and form thereby a rude sort of tent under which they slept securely, as gnats will not pass through the meshes of a net. Subsequently the tester of a bed was so called, and lastly the canopy borne over kings. (Greek, κωνωψ, a gnat; κωνωπειoν a gnat-curtain; Latin, conõpēum, a gnatcurtain.)