Word.ws English Dictionary

gilded cage

gilded cage noun: a place (or, by extension, situation) which is superficially attractive but nevertheless constraining; a comfortable but confined situation.

Noun

gilded cage (plural gilded cages)

  1. (figuratively) A place (or, by extension, situation) which is superficially attractive but nevertheless constraining; a comfortable but confined situation.
    • Two years ago he wrote of the Presidency as the "final sacrifice," adding: "The restraint, artificiality and loneliness in the White House... seems the life of a pet in a gilded cage."1932 December 23, “June & Duty”, in Time
    • There were no bars on the windows, no jangling keys, no doors to lock or unlock. It was altogether pleasant, but I never forgot that it was a gilded cage.1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 650

Examples of gilded cage in a sentence

  • It may have offered inspiration and meaning, but too often it has been something of a gilded cage.2009 March 27, Madeleine Bunting, “Patriarchal, yes. All bad? No”, in The Guardian:
  • Trapped behind barbed wire, but increasingly prosperous, East Germany began to resemble the gilded cage of the eastern bloc, at least in the eyes of its socialist neighbours.2023 April 2, Jacob Mikanowski, “Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer review – the human face of the socialist state”, in The Observer, →ISSN:

Forms of gilded cage

pluralgilded cages

Questions about gilded cage

What does gilded cage mean?
Gilded cage means a place (or, by extension, situation) which is superficially attractive but nevertheless constraining; a comfortable but confined situation.
How do you use gilded cage in a sentence?
It may have offered inspiration and meaning, but too often it has been something of a gilded cage.
What part of speech is gilded cage?
Gilded cage is a noun.
What is the plural of gilded cage?
The plural of gilded cage is gilded cages.

Words near gilded cage in the dictionary

  1. Gildays
  2. Gildea
  3. Gildeas
  4. gilded
  5. Gilded Age
  6. gilded cage
  7. gilded cages
  8. Gilded Chamber
  9. gilded flicker
  10. gilded flickers
  11. gilded the lily

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gilded 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.

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