canary

From French canarie, from Spanish canario, from the Latin Canariae insulae (“Canary Islands”) (Spanish Islas Canarias); from the largest island Insula Canaria (“Dog Island" or "Canine Island”), named for its dogs, from canārius (“canine”), from canis (“dog”).

• Audio (US):

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• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kəˈnɛəɹi/
• (US) IPA^(key): /kəˈnɛəɹi/

• Audio (General Australian):

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canary (countable and uncountable, plural canaries)

1. A small, usually yellow, finch (genus Serinus), a songbird native to the Canary Islands.
2. Any of various small birds of different countries, most of which are largely yellow in colour.
3. (informal) A female singer, soprano, a coloratura singer.
4. (slang) An informer or snitch; a squealer.
5. A light, slightly greenish, yellow colour.

   canary:  

6. (slang) A (usually yellow) capsule of the short-acting barbiturate pentobarbital/pentobarbitone (Nembutal).
7. (Australia, informal) A yellow sticker applied by the police to a vehicle to indicate it is unroadworthy.
   • 1993 September 12, Jacco Zwetsloot, “Warning About Speed Traps”, in alt.folklore.urban‎^[1] (Usenet):

     The tendency in these types of situations (as far as I can see) is that because I don't think the act itself is illegal, the police will go through your vehicle systematically loking^[sic] for anything wrong with it, to slap a canary on it (that's slang for an unroadworthy sticker) or present you with some other fine.

   • 1999 January 16, Garry Lawson, “Noisy Bikes (Update)”, in aus.motorcycles‎^[2] (Usenet):

     Yes, if the exhaust is to noisey^[sic] they can slap a yellow canary on it, but the[n] who cares you got rid of it.

   • 2003 February 14, Noddy, “Spare tyres”, in aus.cars‎^[3] (Usenet):

     You don't have to carry a spare wheel for a car to be roadworthy, and if you *do* carry one, it doesn't have to be in a roadworthy condition *unless* you fit it [to] the car and drive on it. / If it's not and you get pinched, expect a canary...

8. Any test subject, especially an inadvertent or unwilling one. (From the mining practice of using canaries to detect dangerous gases.)
9. (computing) A value placed in memory such that it will be the first data corrupted by a buffer overflow, allowing the program to identify and recover from it.
10. (computing) A change that is tested by being rolled out first to a subset of machines or users before rolling out to all.
11. (countable, uncountable) A light, sweet, white wine from the Canary Islands.
    • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare,  […] [T]he Merrie Wiues of Windsor. […] (First Quarto), London: […] T[homas] C[reede] for Arthur Ihonson, […], published 1602, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

      Ile to my honeſt knight ſir Iohn Falſtaffe, / And drinke Canary with him.

    • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 190:

      And though the annals of the period do not show us that there was less ale drawn, or less canary called for; men got dry with the heat of polemical discussion, and drunk with a text, not the fag end of a ballad, in their mouths; and people made a sort of morality of straight hair, long faces, and sad-coloured garments.

    • 1863, J[oseph] Sheridan Le Fanu, “In Which a Liberty Is Taken with Mr. Nutter’s Name, and Mr. Dangerfield Stands at the Altar”, in The House by the Church-yard. […], volume II, London: Tinsley, Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 234:

      Or maybe you'd accept iv a couple o' bottles of claret or canaries?

12. A lively dance, possibly of Spanish origin (also called canaries).
    • 1592, Thomas Nash[e], Pierce Penilesse His Supplication to the Deuill. […]‎^[4], London: […] [John Charlewood for] Richard Ihones, […], →OCLC:

      In an other corner, Mistris Minx, a marchants wife, that will eate no cherries, forsooth, but when they are at twentie shillings a pound, that lookes as simperingly as if she were besmeard, and iets it as gingerly as if she were dancing the canaries, […]

    • c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 235, column 2:

      […] I haue ſeen a medicine / That's able to breath life into a ſtone, / Quicken a rocke, and make you dance Canari / With ſprightly fire and motion, […]

13. (UK, slang, obsolete) A sovereign (coin).
14. (public transport) A previously-issued ticket, retained by a ticket-seller, conductor or driver and resold to a subsequent passenger as a means of defrauding the transport company.
    • 2022 October 10, Matthew Backhouse, “Bus driver accused of pocketing fares compensated”, in The New Zealand Herald‎^{[url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/bus-driver-accused-of-pocketing-fares-compensated/6LGJQIWFMEMLXONOBONVLQ7NGQ/]}:

      She had previously been sacked ... for "selling canaries" - a practice in which drivers resell used tickets to passengers and keep the fare for themselves.

• (informant): See Thesaurus:informant

• Serinus canaria, Serinus pusillus, Serinus serinus

• Abyssinian grosbeak canary (Crithagra donaldsoni)
• Atlantic canary (Serinus canaria)
• black-faced canary (Crithagra capistratus)
• black-headed canary (Serinus alario)
• black-throated canary (Crithagra atrogularis)
• brimstone canary (Crithagra sulphuratus)
• bully canary (Crithagra sulphuratus)
• bush canary (Mohoua ochrocephala)
• canarybird flower, canarybird vine (Tropaeolum peregrinum)
• canary bird
• canary creeper (Tropaeolum peregrinum)
• canary clover (Dorycnium hirsutum)
• canary fit
• canary-flycatcher (in genus Culicicapa)
• canary flyrobin (Devioeca papuana)
• canary girl
• canary in a coal mine, canary in the coal mine
• canary grass (Phalaris canariensis)
• canary nasturtium (Tropaeolum peregrinum)
• canary parakeet
• canarypox (Canarypox virus)
• canary release
• canary rockfish (Sebastes pinniger)
• canary seed
• canary trap
• canary-winged finch (Melanodera melanodera)
• canary-winged parakeet (Brotogeris versicolurus)
• canary wood, canary whitewood
• canary yellow
• canarylike
• canarywood
• Cape canary (Serinus canicollis)
• cat that ate the canary, cat that swallowed the canary
• climate canary
• common canary (Serinus canaria)
• Damara canary (Serinus alario leucolaema)
• domestic canary (Serinus canaria)
• forest canary (Crithagra scotops)
• grosbeak-canary (Crithagra spp.)
• hairy canary
• island canary (Serinus canaria)
• Kenya grosbeak-canary (Crithagra buchanani)
• lemon-breasted canary (Crithagra citrinipectus)
• miner's canary
• Missouri canary
• northern grosbeak-canary (Crithagra donaldsoni)
• papyrus canary (Crithagra koliensis)
• protea canary (Crithagra leucoptera)
• red factor canary
• Rocky Mountain canary
• sea canary (Delphinapterus leucas)
• sing like a canary
• southern grosbeak-canary (Crithagra buchanani)
• stack canary
• white-bellied canary (Crithagra dorsostriatus)
• white-throated canary (Crithagra albogularis)
• yellow-eyed canary, yellow-fronted canary (Crithagra mozambica)
• yellow-crowned canary (Serinus flavivertex)
• warrant canary

canary (comparative more canary, superlative most canary)

1. Of a light yellow colour.

canary (third-person singular simple present canaries, present participle canarying, simple past and past participle canaried)

1. (intransitive) To dance nimbly (as in the canary dance).
   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], line 11:

     but to jig off a tune at / the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet,

2. (slang) To inform or snitch, to betray secrets, especially about illegal activities.
3. (software engineering) To test a software change by rolling out to a small set of machines or users before making it available to all.

• (to inform): See Thesaurus:rat out

• serin
• yellowhead
• Appendix:Colors

• (sovereign): John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary