Definition of "cage" in English

noun

1. An enclosure made of bars, normally to hold animals.

   • We keep a bird in a cage.
   • The tigers are in a cage to protect the public.
   • The most dangerous prisoners are locked away in a cage.

2. The passenger compartment of a lift.

3. (field hockey or ice hockey, water polo) The goal.

4. (US, derogatory, slang) An automobile.

5. (figuratively) Something that hinders freedom.

6. (slang) A prison or prison cell.

7. (athletics) The area from which competitors throw a discus or hammer.

8. An outer framework of timber, enclosing something within it.

9. (engineering) A skeleton frame to limit the motion of a loose piece, such as a ball valve.

10. A wirework strainer, used in connection with pumps and pipes.

11. (mining) The drum on which the rope is wound in a hoisting whim.

12. (baseball, ice hockey) The protective wire mask at the front of a helmet.

13. (graph theory) A regular graph that has as few vertices as possible for its girth.

14. In killer sudoku puzzles, an irregularly-shaped group of cells that must contain a set of unique digits adding up to a certain total, in addition to the usual constraints of sudoku.

verb

1. (transitive) To confine in a cage; to put into and keep in a cage.

2. (transitive, slang) To imprison.

   • The serial killer was caged for life.

3. (transitive, figuratively) To restrict someone's movement or creativity.

4. (aviation) 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.

5. 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.