birdcage n.
1. pertaining to judicial confinement.
(a) (Aus.) a lock-up, a police station.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bell’s Life in Sydney 16 Mar. 3/3: He quietly proceeded about 50 yards en route to the ‘birdcage,’ when it suddenly occurred to him that such a course was by no means ‘a step in the right direction’. |
(b) (UK Und.) a prison.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Newcastle Courant 2 Sept. 6/5: He had, after his first incarceration, been able to keep out of her Majesty’s birdcage. |
(c) (Aus.) the holding cells in a (magistrate’s) court.
| Truth (Sydney) 28 Oct. 2/7: Captain Fisher, S.M. found the birdcage full of prisoners at the Central yesterday morning. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 20 Jan. 5/2: The attendance of prisaoners at the Central Police Court on Saturday amounted to the total of the whole week. Thirty-five prisoners [...] filled the bird-cage. |
2. a bustle or crinoline on a woman’s dress.
| [ | ![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Southern Reporter (Cork) 10 Dec. 4/5: I do most thoroughly abominate and denounce [...] the monstrous hoops of whale-bone and basket-work, the lumbering bird-cages and hen-coops, [...] that the vain, the dull, or the vicious are parading themselves about in]. |
| ‘The Agricultural Irish Girl’ 🎵 And she does not wear those things behind, / The ladies call bird cages. | |
| Sporting Times 2 Jan. 1/3: And she went on that New Year’s morn to bed, / In her petticoat, birdcage and boots. | |
| Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Richmond Times Dispatch (VA) 21 Mar. 45/1: Her sash is of black and green, and her ‘birdcage’ is of black silk. |
3. a four-wheeled cab.
| , , | | Sl. Dict. |
| Letters by an Odd Boy 165: Some of the slang expressions, also, are simply funny; as, for example, when you call [...] a four-wheeled cab ‘a bird-cage! | |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 8: Bird Cage, a wagonette. |
4. (Aus.) at a race-course, the area where the horses are stabled prior to racing.
| Eve. News (Sydney) 4 Nov. 5/4: Thousands are on the lawn and paddock, while the birdcage is thronged with those who wish to get a straight tip from the various trainers and jockeys. |
in prison use
(a) a cell.
| Morn. Call (SF) 23 June 12/3: The boys were [...] formally charged [...] They laughed [...] and played leapfrog in the cell called the birdcage. | |
 | Herald (Los Angeles) 12 June 4/2: In the city prison the women were thrown into one dark and stifling cell called the bird-cage. | |
| Gadfly (Adelaide) 28 Mar. 9/1: He comes after me ’ell fer leather, an’ does a tumble over Mick ’oo’s layin’ dead to the world be the fowl-’ouse. ‘You’ll do,’ ses the John, an’ ’e ’umps Mick into ’is bird-cage, an’ Mick never knows wot struck ’im. | |
| (con. c.1915) Warden’s Wife 70: They were so proud of the modern cell block [...] so pleased that the ‘birdcages’ were enclosed within walls. | |
| , | | DAS. |
| Queens’ Vernacular 126: In the pokey [...] he is fit in (booked, mugged and sprayed with lice repellent) before being thrown into a cell [bird (monkey) cage]. |
(b) (US) the condemned cell, into which a prisoner is transferred from Death Row n. for the last few days prior to his execution.
| We Who Are About to Die 178: He left the Row to go to the death cell, known to us as the Birdcage. | |
| Long Good-Bye 309: Would it be all right now if I assumed you were representing Mr Harlan Potter when you came to see me in the bird cage? | |
| Cell 2455 6: If he wants he can say goodbye to all or any of the men he’s been living with for eleven months, or he can walk straight to the birdcage. |
(c) (N.Z. prison) a prison.
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 18/2: birdcage n. 1 a prison. |
(d) (N.Z. prison) a solitary confinement cell.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 18/2: birdcage n. 2 the solitary confinement punishment cell. |
(e) (N.Z. prison) the sally port.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 18/2: birdcage n. 3 = sallyport. |
5. a dormitory for women students.
| Marietta Dly Leader (OH) 7 May 4/2: At certain co-educational colledges a ‘bird-cage’ means a female dormitory. | |
| ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 23: bird-cage, n. Dormitory for women students. | |
| Okolona Messenger (MS) 22 Oct. 3/1: College slang [...] The ‘belt chaser’ walks with a ‘bird’ to the ‘birdcage (a dormitory for women students). | |
| , | | DAS. |
6. (US) a brothel.
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| , | | DAS. |
7. (US) an elevator with an openwork sliding metal gate.
| Foundry 108: Freddie followed them, riding up in the ‘bird cage’. |
8. a sleeping cubicle in a flophouse, separated from its neighbours by a ‘wall’ of chicken wire.
| Collier’s 27 Aug. 60: Bird cages are six feet by four feet and contain a bed and a locker. |
9. (N.Z. prison) the exercise yard.
| Big Huey 245: birdcage (n) Security exercise yard. |