Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Canăbus

（κάναβος or κάνναβος). A wooden stock or framework used by potters and sculptors round which the clay was laid (Poll.vii. 164). In small statues (sigilla) and vessels it was of the simplest description, and mostly of the form of a cross, crux or stipes (Tertull. Apol. 12; ad Nat. i. 12). It is applied to very lean persons (Strattis ap. Pollux, x. 189; Anth. P. xi. 107), as we should say “a skeleton.” It is the same word as the Latin cannaba, “a booth,” both signifying a construction like a scaffold or framework. The word seems to have been also used for the outline figure which sculptors and painters used as a model (Suidas, s. h. v.).