Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

warrant canary

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.38 in modern English

Syllables: war-ran-t -ca-nary
IPA

21

Scrabble Score

13

Letters

5

Syllables

7

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A public notice that a service provider has not received a secret government subpoena for their customers' data that they would be prohibited from saying they had received.

American usage

Example Sentences

"However, it may be possible, via a warrant canary or a similar technique, for a CA to communicate the existence of a secret court order to the Internet community."
"Warrant canaries are legal tricks employed by conscientious organisations to get around the fact that certain demands from the US government cannot be disclosed publicly."
"A warrant canary is a defense against the gag orders that come with National Security Letters and other secret subpoenas. With a warrant canary, the site would some sort of message posted saying, for example, “we have not received a secret subpoena as of July 24, 2014.”"

Etymology

Allusion to a miner's canary.

Usage

American usage

Inflected Forms

warrant canaries (plural)

Questions

What does warrant canary mean?: A public notice that a service provider has not received a secret government subpoena for their customers' data that they would be prohibited from saying they had received.
Where does warrant canary come from?: Allusion to a miner's canary.

How to pronounce warrant canary

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “warrant canary”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling () so you know which sounds to aim for.
Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “warrant canary”.
Repeat and practice — Say “warrant canary” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.