canary

noun/kəˈnɛri/

Frequency rank: #8,185 of 20,003 in the WORDED list (wordfreq data)

Meaning

A small yellow songbird, often kept as a pet or historically used in mines as a warning signal for toxic gases.

Illustration for the English word “canary”

Example sentence

The miners carried a caged canary down into the tunnels to detect dangerous gases.

Synonyms & related words

More words in ranks 8,101–8,200