- a small yellow bird with a beautiful song, often kept in a cage as a petTopics Birdsc1Oxford Collocations DictionaryCanary is used before these nouns:
- yellow
Word Originlate 16th cent.: from French canari, from Spanish canario ‘canary’ or ‘person from the Canary Islands’.Definitions on the go
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Idioms
See canary in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionarya canary in a/the coal mine
- something that gives you an early warning of danger
- Among the species at risk is the silvery minnow, the river's equivalent of a canary in a coal mine.
like the cat that got/ate/swallowed the canary (US English)
(British English like a cat that’s got the cream)
- very pleased with yourself synonym smug
- She looked like the cat that’s swallowed the canary. She was almost purring with pleasure.
Check pronunciation:
canary