canary
See also: Canary
English
editEtymology
editFrom 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
editAudio (US): (file) - (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /kəˈnɛəɹi/
- (US) IPA(key): /kəˈnɛəɹi/
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
editcanary (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[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.
- 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...
- 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, [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?
- 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; republished as J[ohn] Payne Collier, editor, Pierce Penniless’s Supplication to the Devil. […], London: […] [Frederic Shoberl, Jun.] for the Shakespeare Society, 1842, →OCLC, page 21:
- 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).
Synonyms
edit- (informant): See Thesaurus:informant
Hyponyms
editDerived terms
edit- 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
editbird from the Canary Islands
|
colour
|
wine
|
soprano
|
small yellow bird in general
squealer
Nembutal-capsule
Adjective
editcanary (comparative more canary, superlative most canary)
- Of a light yellow colour.
Translations
editof a light yellow colour
|
Verb
editcanary (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
edit- (to inform): See Thesaurus:rat out
Translations
editto dance nimbly
to inform or snitch
See also
editReferences
edit- (sovereign): John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary
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