# canary
## English
### Etymology

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”).

### Pronunciation

* Audio (US):(file)
* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /kəˈnɛəɹi/
* (US) IPA: /kəˈnɛəɹi/
* Audio (General Australian):(file)

### Noun

canary (countable and uncountable, plural canaries)
* A small, usually yellow, finch (genus Serinus), a songbird native to the Canary Islands.
* Any of various small birds of different countries, most of which are largely yellow in colour.
* (informal) A female singer, soprano, a coloratura singer.
* (slang) An informer or snitch; a squealer.
* A light, slightly greenish, yellow colour.
    canary:
* (slang) A (usually yellow) capsule of the short-acting barbiturate pentobarbital/pentobarbitone (Nembutal).
* (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 (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 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 (Usenet):Yes, if the exhaust is to noisey 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 (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...
* Any test subject, especially an inadvertent or unwilling one. (From the mining practice of using canaries to detect dangerous gases.)
* (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.
* (computing) A change that is tested by being rolled out first to a subset of machines or users before rolling out to all.
* (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,: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?
* A lively dance, possibly of Spanish origin (also called canaries).
** 1592, Thomas Nash[e], Pierce Penilesse His Supplication to the Deuill. […]‎, 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, […]
* (UK, slang, obsolete) A sovereign (coin).
* (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:She had previously been sacked ... for "selling canaries" - a practice in which drivers resell used tickets to passengers and keep the fare for themselves.

#### Synonyms

* (informant): See Thesaurus:informant

#### Hyponyms

* Serinus canaria, Serinus pusillus, Serinus serinus

#### Derived terms

* 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

#### Translations
### Adjective

canary (comparative more canary, superlative most canary)
* Of a light yellow colour.

#### Translations
### Verb

canary (third-person singular simple present canaries, present participle canarying, simple past and past participle canaried)
* (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,
* (slang) To inform or snitch, to betray secrets, especially about illegal activities.
* (software engineering) To test a software change by rolling out to a small set of machines or users before making it available to all.

#### Synonyms

* (to inform): See Thesaurus:rat out

#### Translations
### See also

* serin
* yellowhead
* Appendix:Colors

### References

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