Word.ws English Dictionary

canarying

canarying is the present participle and gerund of canary.

Meaning of canary

Verb

canary (third-person singular simple present canaries, present participle canarying, simple past and past participle canaried)

  1. (intransitive) To dance nimbly (as in the canary dance).
    • but to jig off a tune at / the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet,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]...
  2. (slang) To inform or snitch, to betray secrets, especially about illegal activities.
    Synonyms:
    rat out
  3. To test a software change by rolling out to a small set of machines or users before making it available to all.

See all 21 meanings of canary

Questions about canarying

What is canarying the present participle and gerund of?
Canarying is the present participle and gerund of canary.

Words near canarying in the dictionary

  1. Canary Wharf
  2. canary-flycatcher
  3. canary-flycatchers
  4. canarygrass
  5. canarygrasses
  6. canarying
  7. canarylike
  8. canarypox
  9. canarypoxvirus
  10. canarypoxviruses
  11. canarywood

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: canarying (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: “canarying.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/canarying. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.