Canary
adj, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·Middle school level
Definitions
- 1 A small, usually yellow, finch (genus Serinus), a songbird native to the Canary Islands. countable, uncountable
- 2 Someone connected with Norwich City Football Club, as a fan, player, coach etc.
- 3 any of several small Old World finches wordnet
- 4 Any of various small birds of different countries, most of which are largely yellow in colour. countable, uncountable
- 5 a moderate yellow with a greenish tinge wordnet
Show 14 more definitions
- 6 A female singer, soprano, a coloratura singer. countable, informal, uncountable
- 7 a female singer wordnet
- 8 An informer or snitch; a squealer. countable, slang, uncountable
- 9 someone acting as an informer or decoy for the police wordnet
- 10 A light, slightly greenish, yellow colour. countable, uncountable
- 11 A (usually yellow) capsule of the short-acting barbiturate pentobarbital/pentobarbitone (nembutal). countable, slang, uncountable
- 12 A yellow sticker applied by the police to a vehicle to indicate it is unroadworthy. Australia, countable, informal, uncountable
"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."
- 13 Any test subject, especially an inadvertent or unwilling one. (From the mining practice of using canaries to detect dangerous gases.) countable, uncountable
- 14 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. countable, uncountable
- 15 A change that is tested by being rolled out first to a subset of machines or users before rolling out to all. countable, uncountable
- 16 A light, sweet, white wine from the Canary Islands. countable, uncountable
"Ile to my honeſt knight ſir Iohn Falſtaffe, / And drinke Canary with him."
- 17 A lively dance, possibly of Spanish origin (also called canaries). countable, uncountable
"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, […]"
- 18 A sovereign (coin). UK, countable, obsolete, slang, uncountable
- 19 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. countable, uncountable
"She had previously been sacked ... for "selling canaries" - a practice in which drivers resell used tickets to passengers and keep the fare for themselves."
- 1 To dance nimbly (as in the canary dance). intransitive
"but to jig off a tune at / the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet,"
- 2 To inform or snitch, to betray secrets, especially about illegal activities. slang
- 3 To test a software change by rolling out to a small set of machines or users before making it available to all.
- 1 Of a light yellow colour.
- 2 That can be exercised on quarterly dates, a set time period (usually one year) after the issue date, and before the expiry date. not-comparable
"Canary callable bonds are a type of step-up bond that is a hybrid structure, having elements of both Bermudan and European calls."
- 1 having the color of a canary; of a light to moderate yellow wordnet
Example
More examples"A canary is a small bird, and people sometimes keep it as a pet."
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”).
From 1907, coined by the football club's then-chairman who was a keen breeder of canaries.
Based on the geography of the Canary Islands, between Bermudan and European.