canary
/kəˈnɛəɹi/
"canary" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“canary” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #16,189 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #16,189
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 15
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A small, usually yellow, finch (genus Serinus), a songbird native to the Canary Islands.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | canary |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kəˈnɛəɹi/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #16,189 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 15 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “canary” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for canary is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kəˈnɛəɹi/. Corpus data places it at rank #16,189 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 14 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for canary, with forms such as "acnary", "caanry", and "canarry". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 15 confusable-pair relationships, "Cary", "carry", "candy", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French canarie, from Spanish canario, from the Latin Canariae insulae (“Canary Islands”) (Spanish Islas Canarias); from the largest island Insula Canaria (“Dog Island" or "Canine Island”), named for its dogs, from canārius (“canine”), from canis (“dog”). The correct English form is canary, spelled C-A-N-A-R-Y.
Definition
- 1A small, usually yellow, finch (genus Serinus), a songbird native to the Canary Islands.
- 2Any of various small birds of different countries, most of which are largely yellow in colour.
- 3A female singer, soprano, a coloratura singer.
- 4An informer or snitch; a squealer.
- 5A light, slightly greenish, yellow colour.
- 6A (usually yellow) capsule of the short-acting barbiturate pentobarbital/pentobarbitone (nembutal).
- 7A yellow sticker applied by the police to a vehicle to indicate it is unroadworthy.
- 8Any test subject, especially an inadvertent or unwilling one. (From the mining practice of using canaries to detect dangerous gases.)
- 9A value placed in memory such that it will be the first data corrupted by a buffer overflow, allowing the program to identify and recover from it.
- 10A change that is tested by being rolled out first to a subset of machines or users before rolling out to all.
- 11A light, sweet, white wine from the Canary Islands.
- 12A lively dance, possibly of Spanish origin (also called canaries).
- 13A sovereign (coin).
- 14A previously-issued ticket, retained by a ticket-seller, conductor or driver and resold to a subsequent passenger as a means of defrauding the transport company.
Etymology
From French canarie, from Spanish canario, from the Latin Canariae insulae (“Canary Islands”) (Spanish Islas Canarias); from the largest island Insula Canaria (“Dog Island" or "Canine Island”), named for its dogs, from canārius (“canine”), from canis (“dog”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: acnary,caanry,canarry,canaryy,canayr,cannary,canray,ccanary,cnaary
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of canary - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "canary"?
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Using “canary”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-A-N-A-R-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /kəˈnɛəɹi/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Cary” - see the side-by-side comparison. canary vs Cary
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.