Word.ws English Dictionary

canaries

/kəˈnɛəɹiːz/

canaries is the plural of canary.

canaries is the third-person singular simple present indicative of canary.

Meaning of canary

Noun

canary (countable and uncountable, plural canaries)

  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. (informal) A female singer, soprano, a coloratura singer.
  4. (slang) An informer or snitch; a squealer.
    Synonyms:
    informant
  5. A light, slightly greenish, yellow colour.
  6. (slang) A (usually yellow) capsule of the short-acting barbiturate pentobarbital/pentobarbitone (nembutal).

See all 21 meanings of canary

Proper noun capitalized: Canaries

the Canaries pl (plural only)

  1. (informal, plural, plural-only) The Canary Islands: An archipelago and autonomous community of Spain, off the coast of northwestern Africa, near Morocco.
  2. (UK, plural, plural-only) Nickname of Norwich City Football Club.
    • The Canaries went ahead when the home defence failed to clear their lines and Pilkington was on hand to slide in his eighth goal of the campaign.2012 April 9, Mandeep Sanghera, “Tottenham 1 - 2 Norwich”, in BBC Sport

Phrases with canaries

4 more phrasesFewer phrases

Questions about canaries

What does canaries mean?
Canaries means the Canary Islands: An archipelago and autonomous community of Spain, off the coast of northwestern Africa, near Morocco.
What is canaries the plural of?
Canaries is the plural of canary.
What part of speech is canaries?
Canaries is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce canaries?
Canaries is pronounced /kəˈnɛəɹiːz/.

Words near canaries in the dictionary

  1. Canarian
  2. Canarians
  3. canariboivinoside
  4. canaridigitoxoside
  5. canaried
  6. canaries
  7. canaries in a coal mine
  8. canaries in a coalmine
  9. canaries in coal mines
  10. canaries in coalmines
  11. canaries in the coal mine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: canaries (page history and authors); Canaries (page history and authors); canary (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “canaries.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/canaries. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.