as in informant
a person who provides information about another's wrongdoing
a canary who was singing and giving up the names of some of the city's most notorious drug lords
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of canary
These living materials could also serve as canaries in the coal mine for water safety, glowing brighter or dimming in the presence of specific toxins.
—
Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 7 May 2026
That principle is why coal miners once brought canaries underground, as one emergency medicine doctor explained in a recent court declaration.
—Lisa Song, ProPublica, 7 May 2026
Glossy rosettes emerge green and blush rosy when temperatures dips, then burst into canary-yellow flowers emerge in late summer-early fall.
—Erica Browne Grivas, Midwest Living, 4 May 2026
The canary trap is a simple tool often used to identify leakers or double agents.
—Nate Anderson, ArsTechnica, 4 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for canary
Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 7 May 2026
That principle is why coal miners once brought canaries underground, as one emergency medicine doctor explained in a recent court declaration.
—Lisa Song, ProPublica, 7 May 2026
Glossy rosettes emerge green and blush rosy when temperatures dips, then burst into canary-yellow flowers emerge in late summer-early fall.
—Erica Browne Grivas, Midwest Living, 4 May 2026
The canary trap is a simple tool often used to identify leakers or double agents.
—Nate Anderson, ArsTechnica, 4 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for canary
Recent Examples of Synonyms for canary
Noun
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Former Gambino mobster and government informant John Alite poses on a Queens street in 2013.—
Cara Tabachnick,
CBS News,
20 June 2026
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Rogness is charged with one count of being an accessory after the fact and one count of tampering with a witness, victim or informant.—
Angela George,
USA Today,
19 June 2026
Noun
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One of State Security’s main goals, as well as a central source of its strength, is turning civilians into informers.—
Abraham Jiménez Enoa,
The Dial,
19 May 2026
-
And so every regime invests in having student informers.—
Anne Applebaum,
The Atlantic,
23 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Beyond the more familiar terrain of diabetics, IVF patients, people using hormone therapy, and intravenous users of illicit drugs, people have been turning themselves into lab rats for new wellness frontiers.—
Matthew Sedacca,
Curbed,
16 June 2026
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Cope warns that a mouse only needs a dime-sized gap to get inside, and a rat not much more.—
Sharon Wu,
USA Today,
16 June 2026
Cite this Entry
“Canary.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/canary. Accessed 23 Jun. 2026.
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