In aeronautics, a canard is a wing configuration in which a small forewing or foreplane is placed forward of the main wing of a fixed-wing aircraft or a weapon. The term "canard" may be used to describe the aircraft itself, the wing configuration, or the foreplane. Canard wings are also extensively used in guided missiles and smart bombs.

The term "canard" arose from the appearance of the Santos-Dumont 14-bis of 1906, which was said to be reminiscent of a duck (canard in French) with its neck stretched out in flight.

Despite the use of a canard surface on the first powered aeroplane, the Wright Flyer of 1903, canard designs were not built in quantity until the appearance of the Saab Viggen jet fighter in 1967. The aerodynamics of the canard configuration are complex and require careful analysis.

Rather than use the conventional tailplane configuration found on most aircraft, an aircraft designer may adopt the canard configuration to reduce the main wing loading, to better control the main wing airflow, or to increase the aircraft's manoeuvrability, especially at high angles of attack or during a stall. Canard foreplanes, whether used in a canard or three-surface configuration, have important consequences for the aircraft's longitudinal equilibrium, static and dynamic stability characteristics.

During the time period between the Wright Flyer and the SAAB Viggen, canards were largely ignored . Early canards faced issues related to stability and control and were notorious for stalling . The Wright Brothers experimented with canards on the Wright Flyer in hopes of making crashes safer, their reasoning being that in a stall or loss of lift, the nose would pitch downward, protecting the pilot. However, this made the Wright Flyer unstable in pitch . Additionally, there lacked a proper design process as a result of their novelty, leading to them being shelved in favor of traditional tail-aft configurations for the first half of the 20th century. However, more current demands in the field of aerospace have sparked their resurgence due to perceived enhancements in maneuverability, performance in wide velocity spectrums, and newly available materials and technologies such as fly-by-wire that make their incorporation more plausible.

The Wright Brothers began experimenting with the foreplane configuration around 1900. Their first kite included a front surface for pitch control and they adopted this configuration for their first Flyer. They were suspicious of the aft tail because Otto Lilienthal had been killed in a glider with one. The Wrights realised that a foreplane would tend to destabilise an aeroplane but expected it to be a better control surface, in addition to being visible to the pilot in flight. They believed it impossible to provide both control and stability in a single design, and opted for control.

Many pioneers initially followed the Wrights' lead. For example, the Santos-Dumont 14-bis aeroplane of 1906 had no "tail", but a box kite-like set of control surfaces in the front, pivoting on a universal joint on the fuselage's extreme nose. This was intended to provide both yaw and pitch control. The Fabre Hydravion of 1910 was the first floatplane to fly and had a foreplane.

But canard behaviour was not properly understood and other European pioneers—among them, Louis Blériot—were establishing the tailplane as the safer and more "conventional" design. Some, including the Wrights, experimented with both fore and aft planes on the same aircraft, now known as the three surface configuration.