cage
/keɪd͡ʒ/
cage noun: an enclosure made of spaced bars, normally to hold animals while providing some ventilation. Also the abbreviation of roll cage.
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Noun
cage (plural cages)
- An enclosure made of spaced bars, normally to hold animals while providing some ventilation.
- We keep a bird in a cage.
- The tigers are in a cage to protect the public.
- The passenger compartment of a lift.
- The goal.
- Synonym of automobile.
- Synonyms:
- automobile
- Something that hinders freedom.
- Schwartz examines with dignity and tenderness the battles within and without of […] families, created and biological, and the cages and freedom they can provide.1989 December 17, Nan Donald, “Broken Hearts, Messed Up Families, And New Beginnings”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 23, page 9
- My body is a cage / That keeps me from dancing with the one I love / But my mind holds the key2007, Jeremy Gara, Régine Chassagne, “My Body Is a Cage”, in Neon Bible, performed by Arcade Fire
- A prison or prison cell.
- The 'out of the closet' lesbians and gay men here in the Iowa Cages are harassed and discriminated daily by oppressive pigs, believe me, I know, as a lesbian I've experienced it first hand and seen my fellow lesbian and gay friends oppressed to where I'm ready to explode.1985 December 14, Robyn Shawnee Jackson, “Kouuntry And Kitten”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 22, page 4
- The area from which competitors throw a discus or hammer.
- An outer framework of timber, enclosing something within it.
- Cage, in carpentry, is an outer work of timber inclosing another within it. Thus the cage of a stair is the wooden inclosure that encircles it.1842, Joseph Gwilt, “A Glossary of Terms Used by Architects”, in An Encyclopædia of Architecture, Historical, Theoretical, and Practical, 2nd edition, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans...
- A skeleton frame to limit the motion of a loose piece, such as a ball valve.
- A wirework strainer, used in connection with pumps and pipes.
- The drum on which the rope is wound in a hoisting whim.
- The protective wire mask at the front of a helmet.
- A regular graph that has as few vertices as possible for its girth.
- In killer sudoku puzzles, a group of connecting cells that must contain a set of unique digits adding up to a certain total, in addition to the usual constraints of sudoku.
Verb
cage (third-person singular simple present cages, present participle caging, simple past and past participle caged)
- To confine in a cage; to put into and keep in a cage.
- And the row of human captors, ever leering, They who caged me, Know their power and gloat on my captivity.1923, Animal World: An Advocate of Humanity, page 33
- Laying out the zoo on horseback, he went about making plans to combine his scrubby mesas and canyons with moats, and thereby eliminate caging many large animals—a revolutionary advance in American zoo design.2000, Bernard Livingston, Zoo: Animals, People, Places, →ISBN, page 95
- To imprison.
- The serial killer was caged for life.
- To restrict someone's movement or creativity.
- To immobilize an artificial horizon.
- To prevent damage to its gimbal mountings during extreme aerobatic maneuvers, the navball should be caged before the start of a display sequence.
- To track individual responses to direct mail, either (advertising) to maintain and develop mailing lists or (politics) to identify people who are not eligible to vote because they do not reside at the registered addresses.
Proper noun capitalized: Cage
Cage
- A surname from French.
Also used as
cage is also the abbreviation of roll cage.
cage meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and Odia
cage in Hindi
- enclosure
- क़फ़स qafas, कफस kaphas, पिंजड़ा piñjṛā, पिंजरा piñjrā
cage in Urdu
- enclosure
- قَفَس qafas
cage in Punjabi
- enclosure
- ਕਫ਼ਸ kafas, ਪਿੰਜਰਾ piñjrā
cage in Odia
- enclosure
- ପଞ୍ଜୁରି Pan̄juri
More languagesFewer languages
- cage in Assamese
- পিঁজৰা pĩzora, সঁজা xõza
- cage in Nepali
- पिंजडा piñjaḍā
- cage in Tagalog
- kulungan, ikulong
- cage in Arabic
- قَفَص qafaṣ
- cage in Malay
- sangkar
- cage in Indonesian
- sangkar, kandang
- cage in Persian
- قَفَس qafas
- cage in Thai
- กรง grong
- cage in Vietnamese
- lồng, cái lồng, chuồng, cái chuồng
- cage in Myanmar
- လှောင်အိမ် hlaung-im, လော lau:
Examples of cage in a sentence
- The most dangerous prisoners are locked away in a cage.
- For his father had / never a house but the cage.c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares...
- Stone walls do not a prison make, / Nor iron bars a cage.1642, Richard Lovelace, To Althea, from Prison, stanza 4, lines 1–2:
- The industrial practice of caging commercial laying hens has given caged housing a bad narne.2010, Gail Damerow, Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, 3rd Edition, →ISBN:
- With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.2013 July-August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4:
Synonyms of cage
Forms of cage
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | cages |
| alternative form | kage |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | cages |
| present participle | caging |
| past participle | caged |
| past | caged |
Origin of cage
From Middle English cage, from Old French cage, from Latin cavea. Doublet of cadge and cavea and related to jail.
Words formed from cage
- Cagean
- baby cage
- battery cage
- batting cage
- bear cage
- birdcage
- bird-cage
- bone-cage
- bottle cage
- cage ball
- cagebelle
- cage bird
- cagebird
- cage box
- cage boxer
- cage boxing
- cage bra
- cage compound
- cage cup
- cage dance
- cage dancer
- cage dive
- cage diver
- cage diving
- cage effect
- cage fight
- cage fighter
- cage fighting
- cage-free
- cageful
- cage gear
- Cage Green
- cage home
- cageless
- cagelike
- cageling
- cage match
- cagemate
- cager
- cage stage
- cagewash
- cagework
- cagey
- chastity cage
- cock cage
- cope cage
- crow cage
- crush cage
- decage
- discage
- encage
- Faraday cage
- fish cage
- gilded cage
- goal cage
- health cage
- homecage
- incage
- iron cage
- microcage
Phrases with cage
- PA cage
- rib cage
- bird cage
- cage bras
- cage cups
- roll cage
- cage balls
- cage birds
- cage boxed
- cage boxes
- cage dives
- cage gears
28 more phrasesFewer phrases
- cage homes
- penis cage
- squat cage
- tiger cage
- cage boxers
- cage dances
- cage divers
- cage fights
- cage stages
- safety cage
- tomato cage
- cage dancers
- cage effects
- cage matches
- cage fighters
- squirrel cage
- thoracic cage
- cage compounds
- Pombaline cage
- squirrel's cage
- orientation cage
- steel cage match
- Prince Albert cage
- steel cage matches
- rattle someone's cage
- rattled someone's cage
- rattles someone's cage
- rattling someone's cage
Words that rhyme with cage
Questions about cage
- What does cage mean?
- Cage means an enclosure made of spaced bars, normally to hold animals while providing some ventilation.
- What is cage in Hindi?
- Cage in Hindi is क़फ़स (qafas), कफस (kaphas), पिंजड़ा (piñjṛā). See Cage meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use cage in a sentence?
- The most dangerous prisoners are locked away in a cage.
- What part of speech is cage?
- Cage can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce cage?
- Cage is pronounced /keɪd͡ʒ/.
- What is the plural of cage?
- The plural of cage is cages.
Words near cage in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cage (page history and authors); Cage (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-cage.ogg.
Cite this entry: “cage.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cage. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.