"canaries in a coal mine" meaning in English

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      "expansion": "canaries in a coal mine",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2006, Anthony Marcus, Where Have All the Homeless Gone?: The Making and Unmaking of a Crisis, Berghahn Books, page 152",
          "text": "The weakest members of society become social barometers or canaries in a coal mine.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006 July, Steve Fennessy, “Frog Man”, in Atlanta Magazine",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Patricia K. Smith, Obesity Among Poor Americans: Is Public Assistance the Problem?, Vanderbilt University Press, page 13",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      "form_of": [
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          "word": "canary in a coal mine"
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      "glosses": [
        "plural of canary in a coal mine"
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  "word": "canaries in a coal mine"
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      "expansion": "canaries in a coal mine",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
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        {
          "ref": "2006, Anthony Marcus, Where Have All the Homeless Gone?: The Making and Unmaking of a Crisis, Berghahn Books, page 152",
          "text": "The weakest members of society become social barometers or canaries in a coal mine.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006 July, Steve Fennessy, “Frog Man”, in Atlanta Magazine",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Patricia K. Smith, Obesity Among Poor Americans: Is Public Assistance the Problem?, Vanderbilt University Press, page 13",
          "text": "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.",
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        }
      ],
      "form_of": [
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          "word": "canary in a coal mine"
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        "plural of canary in a coal mine"
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  "word": "canaries in a coal mine"
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