canary bird

3 definitions

0—

#1·3h ago

In slang, 'canary bird' carries two distinct historical meanings: a mistress kept by a wealthy man, and a person who has been imprisoned — a jailbird. The 'mistress' sense may draw on the idea of a caged songbird kept for pleasure, while the 'jailbird' sense parallels the metaphor of being locked up like a caged bird. Both senses are largely archaic and found primarily in 19th and early 20th-century slang dictionaries. In modern use, the term is most associated with a literal canary or the tech concept of a 'canary deployment.'

The old detective novels always described the gangster's canary bird as someone who knew far too much.

Origin: Both senses likely derived from 'canary' — a caged pet bird — extended metaphorically to people kept or confined in various ways. Editorial expansion authored on Slangora (model-assisted, hedged).

Was this helpful?

Comments (0)

No comments yet — say something.

0—

#2·1d ago

(slang) A jailbird.

Origin: Origin information sourced from Wiktionary contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Was this helpful?

Comments (0)

No comments yet — say something.

0—

#3·1d ago

(slang) A mistress.

Was this helpful?

Comments (0)

No comments yet — say something.

Have a better definition?

Add your own interpretation of "canary bird".

Add definition

⚡About Tech, Dev & AI slang

The vocabulary of software engineers, AI researchers, and anyone living in a terminal or on GitHub — from LLM to MCP, CORS to vibe coding, agentic to enshittification.

See all Tech, Dev & AI slang on Slangora.