English
canary
see also: Canary
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /kəˈnɛəɹi/
  • (America) IPA: /kəˈnɛəɹi/
Noun

canary

  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. A light, slightly greenish, yellow colour.
     
  4. (countable, uncountable) A light, sweet, white wine from the Canary Islands.
    • 1599, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, III. ii. 80:
      I will to my honest knight / Falstaff, and drink canary with him.
  5. A lively dance, possibly of Spanish origin (also called canaries).
    • 1598, William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well, II. i. 74:
      and make you dance canary / With sprightly fire and motion;
  6. Any test subject, especially an inadvertent or unwilling one. (From the mining practice of using canaries to detect dangerous gases.)
  7. (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.
  8. (informal) A female singer, soprano, a coloratura singer.
  9. (slang) An informer or snitch; a squealer.
  10. (slang) A (usually yellow) capsule of the short-acting barbiturate pentobarbital/pentobarbitone (Nembutal).
  11. (Australia, informal) A yellow sticker of unroadworthiness.
Synonyms
  • (informant) seeSynonyms en
Translations Translations
  • French: jaune canari
  • German: Kanariengelb
  • Italian: giallo canarino
  • Portuguese: amarelo-canário
Translations
  • Italian: vino delle canarie
Translations Translations Translations Adjective

canary

  1. Of a light yellow colour.
Translations
  • German: kanariengelb
  • Italian: canarino
  • Portuguese: amarelo-canário
Verb

canary

  1. (intransitive) to dance nimbly (as in the canary dance)
    • 1590, William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, III. i. 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.
Synonyms
  • (to inform) seeSynonyms en
Related terms Translations
  • Russian: стуча́ть
Canary
Noun

canary (plural Canaries)

  1. (soccer) Someone connected with Norwich City Football Club, as a fan, player, coach etc.
Adjective

canary (not comparable)

  1. (finance, of an option) That can be exercised on quarterly dates, a set time period (usually one year) after the issue date, and before the expiry date.
    • 2005, Gary Strumeyer, Investing in Fixed Income Securities: Understanding the Bond Market, John Wiley & Sons, chapter 9:
      Canary callable bonds are a type of step-up bond that is a hybrid structure, having elements of both Bermudan and European calls.
    • 2006, Ben Finkelstein, The Politics of Public Fund Investing: How to Modify Wall Street to Fit Main Street, Touchstone, page 123:
      The canary bond is unique in that it is callable during the period before the security converts to a noncallable or bullet structure; the canary callable coupon can possess a step-up feature.
    • 2006, Marc Henrard, Numerical integration for Canary swaptions in the gaussian HJM model, Bank for International Settlements, page 5:
      A (receiver) Canary swaption has two expiry dates 0 < θsub 1 < θsub 2 ≤ tsub 0 and involved two swaps Ssup i (i = 1, 2) with cash -flows (tsub i,j, csub i,j) (1 ≤ j ≤ nsub i).


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