# cage

Pronunciation: say "KAYJ" /keɪd͡ʒ/

## Noun

1. An enclosure made of bars, usually used to hold animals.
   - Simple: A space closed in by bars, usually used for keeping animals inside.
   - _The rescued eagle stayed in a large cage until its wing healed._
   - _Visitors watched the monkeys swing from the bars of their cages._
3. Something that restricts a person's freedom, holding them in as bars would.
   - Simple: Something that stops a person from being free.
   - _Years of debt had become a cage from which she saw no way out._
   - _The expectations we inherit from our families can become cages we never notice._
5. The enclosed compartment of an elevator in which passengers ride.
   - Simple: The part of an elevator that people stand in while it moves.
   - _The miners crowded into the cage for the long ride down the shaft._
   - _The old hotel's elevator still works, its brass cage creaking between floors._
6. A prison, or a cell within one. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A prison, or a small room inside a prison.
   - _Three years in the cage taught him to keep his head down._
   - _After the riot, the whole block spent a week locked in their cages._
8. The goal in ice hockey, field hockey, or water polo, which players shoot at to score.
   - Simple: In hockey or water polo, the goal that players try to score in.
   - _The winger's wrist shot rang off the post and into the cage._
   - _Their goalkeeper guarded the cage brilliantly in the water polo final._
9. A protective wire mask fitted to the front of a helmet, as worn in baseball or ice hockey.
   - Simple: A metal wire guard on the front of a helmet that protects the face.
   - _A slap shot cracked against his cage, but he skated off unhurt._
   - _The catcher's helmet has a cage that covers his whole face._
10. In track and field, the area from which competitors throw the discus or hammer.
   - Simple: In track and field, the place where athletes stand to throw a discus or hammer.
   - _The hammer throwers took turns in the cage during the final._
   - _Her best discus throw of the season came on her last attempt in the cage._
11. A scornful slang name for an automobile. *(slang, US)*
   - Simple: A rude slang word for a car.
   - _The driver of the cage never even saw my bike before he swung into my lane._
   - _After twenty years on two wheels, he hated being stuck in a cage all winter._
12. In killer sudoku, an irregularly shaped group of cells whose digits must all be different and add up to a given total, on top of the ordinary sudoku rules.
   - Simple: In killer sudoku, an oddly shaped group of squares whose numbers must all differ and add up to a set total.
   - _The cage in the top corner totals 3, so its two cells must hold a 1 and a 2._
   - _Experienced solvers start with the smallest cages, where the possible combinations of digits are fewest._
13. In carpentry, an outer timber framework that encloses something within it, such as the woodwork around a staircase.
   - Simple: A wooden frame built all around something, so the thing sits inside it.
   - _The carpenters framed a timber cage around the staircase before the walls were plastered._
   - _Inside the old mill, the grinding machinery sat within a heavy oak cage._
14. In engineering, an open skeleton frame that limits the movement of a loose part, such as a ball valve.
   - Simple: An open frame that keeps a loose part, like the ball in a valve, from moving too far.
   - _As water pressure lifts the ball off its seat, the cage stops it from rising into the outlet._
   - _The engineers redesigned the cage so the loose plunger could no longer jam sideways in the valve body._
15. A strainer made of wirework, used with pumps and pipes.
   - Simple: A wire screen on a pump or pipe that stops bits of dirt from getting in.
   - _Leaves clogged the cage on the end of the suction pipe, and the pump lost its prime._
   - _The farmer fitted a wire cage over the pump intake to keep frogs and weeds out of the line._
16. In mining, the drum of a hoisting whim, around which the rope is wound.
   - Simple: In mining, the big drum that the rope winds around on a machine that lifts loads.
   - _As the horses walked their circle, the rope wound onto the cage and the ore bucket rose from the shaft._
   - _The rope had slipped off the cage, so the whim was stopped before the load could drop._
18. In graph theory, a regular graph that has the fewest vertices possible for its girth.
   - Simple: In math, a graph with the same number of links at every point, and the fewest points its shortest loop allows.
   - _She proved that the graph was a cage, since no smaller cubic graph has the same girth._
   - _Finding cages of large girth is hard, and for many degrees their exact size is still unknown._

## Verb

2. To put a person or animal into a cage and keep them confined there.
   - Simple: To put an animal or person in a cage and keep them there.
   - _Modern zoos rarely cage their big cats, relying on moats and open enclosures instead._
   - _Many egg farms have stopped caging their laying hens._
4. To limit someone's freedom of movement or their creativity.
   - Simple: To stop someone from moving freely or from being creative.
   - _A rigid style guide can cage even the most inventive designers._
   - _The defenders caged the star forward all night, giving him no room to turn._
7. To put or keep someone in prison. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To put someone in prison.
   - _Prosecutors want to cage him for the rest of his life._
   - _Both brothers were caged after the bank job went wrong._
17. In aviation, to lock an artificial horizon in place so that it cannot move.
   - Simple: To lock the instrument in a plane that shows the horizon, so it stays still.
   - _Pilots cage the artificial horizon before a steep aerobatic routine so the gyro does not tumble._
   - _With the horizon caged, the display stayed frozen while the plane rolled through the maneuver._
19. To track individual responses to a direct-mail campaign, whether to build up a mailing list or to find voters who no longer live at their registered addresses.
   - Simple: To track answers to mailings, to build mailing lists or to find voters who do not live at their listed address.
   - _Critics said the campaign planned to cage voters by mailing letters and challenging anyone whose letter came back undeliverable._
   - _The fundraising firm cages every reply card it receives, so the donor list stays accurate._

## Origin

From Middle English cage, from Old French cage, from Latin cavea. It is a doublet of cadge and cavea, and is related to jail.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/cage (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).