canary vs snitch

canary

verb
  • to inform or snitch, to betray secrets, especially about illegal activities. 

  • to test a software change by rolling out to a small set of machines or users before making it available to all. 

  • to dance nimbly (as in the canary dance) 

adj
  • Of a light yellow colour. 

noun
  • A small, usually yellow, finch (genus Serinus), a songbird native to the Canary Islands. 

  • A light, sweet, white wine from the Canary Islands. 

  • An informer or snitch; a squealer. 

  • A (usually yellow) capsule of the short-acting barbiturate pentobarbital/pentobarbitone (Nembutal). 

  • A change that is tested by being rolled out first to a subset of machines or users before rolling out to all. 

  • A female singer, soprano, a coloratura singer. 

  • A light, slightly greenish, yellow colour. 

  • A 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. 

  • A lively dance, possibly of Spanish origin (also called canaries). 

  • A yellow sticker applied by the police to a vehicle to indicate it is unroadworthy. 

  • Any of various small birds of different countries, most of which are largely yellow in colour. 

  • Any test subject, especially an inadvertent or unwilling one. (From the mining practice of using canaries to detect dangerous gases.) 

snitch

verb
  • To inform on, especially in betrayal of others. 

  • To contact or cooperate with the police for any reason. 

noun
  • A ball used in the sport of Quidditch. 

  • A thief. 

  • An informer, one who betrays his group. 

  • A nose. 

  • A tiny morsel. 

How often have the words canary and snitch occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )