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canaries in a coal mine. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Noun
canaries in a coal mine
- plural of canary in a coal mine
2006, Anthony Marcus, Where Have All the Homeless Gone?: The Making and Unmaking of a Crisis, Berghahn Books, →ISBN, page 152:The weakest members of society become social barometers or canaries in a coal mine.
2006 July, Steve Fennessy, “Frog Man”, in Atlanta Magazine:One of the few animals to live part of its life in water and part on land, frogs are seen by some as canaries in a coal mine — which is why the chytrid fungus has environmentalists worried.
2009, Patricia K. Smith, Obesity Among Poor Americans: Is Public Assistance the Problem?, Vanderbilt University Press, →ISBN, page 13:Perhaps public assistance has little to do with obesity among the poor; instead, the poor may simply be canaries in a coal mine, their health suffering from environmental changes before others feel the impact.