E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Can’opy
properly means a gnat curtain. Herod’otus 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, , a gnat; εo a gnat-curtain; Latin, conpum, a gnatcurtain.)
, a gnat; 
ε
o
p
um, a gnatcurtain.)
