climate canary

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

Similar to the miner's canary, from which the term is derived.

Noun

[edit]

climate canary (plural climate canaries)

  1. A species that is affected by an environmental danger prior to other species, thus serving as an early warning system for the other species with regard to a danger.

Usage notes

[edit]

Chosen as the most useful word of 2006 by the American Dialect Society.

Hypernyms

[edit]

References

[edit]