Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a lock-up, thus as v. cage to place in a lock-up [SE in earlier use; Hindley, The Life and Times of James Catnach (1878), glosses as ‘the round-house’].

c.1500		Lancelot 2767: As cowart thus schamfully to ly Excludit in to cage frome chewalry [OED].
1566		G. Gascoigne (trans.) Supposes V ii: He took both Dulippo and the Nurse [...] and clapped them both in a cage.
1576		G. Gascoigne Steele Glas Biii: They clapt me fast, in cage of Myserie. [Ibid.] Fiii: In Woodstreat, Bredstreat, and in Pultery (Where such schoolmaisters keepe their counting house) To [...] keepe their byrds, ful close in caytiues cage.
1592		H. Chettle Kind-Harts Dreame F3: Like a Subsister in a gown of rugge [...] singing the Counter-tenor by the Cage in Southwarke.
1608		Dekker Honest Whore Pt 2 (1630) V ii: His Larke whom he loued, was a Bridewell bird, he’s mad that this Cage should hold her, and is come to let her out.
1623		J. Taylor Vertve of a Iayle II 130: There are of layles or Prisons full eighteene, And sixty Whipping-posts, and Stocks, and Cages.
1632		D. Lupton London and the Countrey Carbonadoed 45: The Debtor when prodigality and ill coruses haue procured this Cage.
1655		Gossips Braule 6: Out ye Bastard-bearing Whore; who lay inn in the Cage you Whore? who lay inn in the Cage.
a.1661		‘The Hangman’s last Will and Testament’ in Rump Poems and Songs (1662) II 150: For half thirteen pence half-penny wages, / I would have cleared out all the Town cages.
1673		J. Wade Vinegar and Mustard B: Thou lay in the Cage by Smithfield Pond with two bastards, thou cage-bird thou.
1700		Congreve Way of the World V i: Your turtle is in custody already; you shall coo in the same cage, if there be a constable or warrant in the parish.
1748		Dyche & Pardon New General Eng. Dict. (5th edn).
1788		G.A. Stevens Adventures of a Speculist I 239: There was a man dead-drunk [...] so we went up to seize him, and put him in the cage for getting drunk on the Lord’s day.
1791		A. Pasquin Shrove Tuesday 84: To Andrew’s cage, where blockheads act / As arbiters of law and fact.
1815		(con. 18C) W. Scott Guy Mannering (1999) 327: I was doomed – still I kept my purpose in the cage and in the stocks.
1821		‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 189: He [...] swore no kicking flirting filly should ever again get him into the Cage or Clink.
1825		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 16 Jan. 406/3: She was so noisy, riotous, and drunk, that Webb thought it necessary to ‘cage’ her.
1833		Satirist (London) 7 July 3/3: [of the grating in a prison gate] ’Twas merry that day in Whitecross-street / When Dame Liberty came to the cage.
1839		W.H. Ainsworth Jack Sheppard (1882) 78: The cage at Willesden was [...] a small round building about eight feet high, with a pointed tile roof.
1841		‘Miss Muggins’s Maid’ Dublin Comic Songster 298: She called the police in a rage [...] So I got dragged off to the cage.
1850		Geelong Advertiser (Vic.) 13 Nov. 2/2: T]he officer managed to secure his man, and was walking him off to the ‘cage’.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 110: CAGE, a minor kind of prison.
1873		C. Rampini Letters from Jamaica 16: A constable was seen approaching and [...] the two termagants [...] were incontinently marched off to ‘the cage’.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1877		S. James Vagabond Papers (3rd series) 136: It’s not what you may call a burlesque, chucked together, not conducted, comparing it with the London cages.
1882		G.A. Sala in Living London (1883) Apr. 140: There seems to be one term for a place of incarceration which would seem to be wholly obsolete. That is ‘round house.’ Are there any ‘cages’ left in the country?
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 14: Cage, a gaol without offices.
1896		‘Army Slang’ in Regiment 11 Apr. 31/1: The guard-room (prisoners’ room) is [...] the ‘net,’ ‘trap,’ ‘clink,’ ‘dust-hole,’ ‘cage,’ ‘digger,’ ‘dog’s-home, ’ ‘marble-arch’.
1898		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley in Peace and War 234: That Col. Hinnery, th’ man that sint me frind Cap. Dhry-fuss to th’ cage.
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: cage. Prisoner of War Compound.
1928		F. Willard ‘Moon Mullins’ [comic strip] They is cheaper ways to git out of this cage than dishin’ out ten smackers.
1932		New Call (Perth, WA) 7 Apr. 3/4: A bird that has only Just escaped from his ‘cage’ after doing a ‘stretch’.
1942		W. Winchell On Broadway 22 July. [synd. col.] He turned out to be an escaped wacko from the Islip looney house and is now in the Bellevue cage.
1947		D. Davin For the Rest of Our Lives 80: The next thing I know I’m back in the cage at Salonika.
1960		E. De Roo Big Rumble 96: Big Tony is plannin’ to go down on one of us. He’s gonna order a rumble from the cage at State-O.
1966		F. Elli Riot (1967) 16: He was suffering from cage-fatigue.
1973		E. Bunker No Beast So Fierce 24: I bought a handful of picture-postcards and addressed them to friends left behind in the cage.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 156: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] The cage. The clink. Inside.
2016		67 ‘Money Afi Make’ 🎵 Even though I talk this crud I'm trying to stay away from the cage.
2018-20		T. Thorne (ed.) ‘Drill Slang Glossary’ at Forensic Linguistic Databank 🌐 Cage – prison (cell) .

2. (UK prison) an exercise cage or yard.

1821

D. Haggart Autobiog. 82: We were frequently together in the cage. This is a sort of open-railed place, one story up in the side wall of the jail, where the prisoners go for fresh air.

3. a dress-improver or bustle.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 173/2: coll. from ca. 1850†.

4. a bed.

1875

W.E. Henley Unpublished Ballad n.p.: In the breeding cage I cops her, With her stays off, all a’blowin’! – Three parts sprung [F&H].

5. (US) a hat.

1905

J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:i 73: cage, n. Cap or hat. ‘Where did you get that cage?’.

6. (US tramp) a cubicle within a tramp’s lodging house.

1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 201: Cages – The cubicle rooms in the cheap lodging houses.
1960		(con. 1950-1960) R.A. Freeman Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 23: Cage – a room in a cheap hotel or lodging house.

7. (US) an elevator, a lift.

1938		in G.G. Korson ‘Down, Down, Down’ Minstrels of the Mine Patch 51: ‘All aboard for the bottom!’ the top-man did yell, / We stepped on the cage, he ding-donged a bell. [Ibid.] 312: Cage: An apparatus in the shaft on which men and coal are hoisted.
1960		(con. 1940s) D. MacCuish Do Not Go Gentle (1962) 63: Some were checking their lamps [...] waiting for the cage to come up for them.
1974		(con. 1944) A. Bergman Big Kiss-Off of 1944 (1975) 5: After I rang the elevator bell, the old cage took the Cape of Good Hope route before reaching nine.

8. (US Und.) a holding cell in a police station or jail; a punishment cell; a prison cell.

1934		L. Berg Prison Nurse (1964) 125: He skinned his hands against the damp concrete of his cage.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 17/2: Cage, a cell, (prison).
1960		(con. 1950-1960) R.A. Freeman Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 23: Cage – a prison cell.
1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 200: cage, n. – a cell.
1977		E. Bunker Animal Factory 3: The courtroom bullpen was twice as large as the cage at the jail.
1987		R. Campbell Alice in La-La Land (1999) 198: You arrest a hooker by the name of Eleanora Reinbeck [...] you got introduced while she’s in the cage.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 5: Cage and Holding Cell Waiting areas. These areas are used to hold inmates waiting to be processed into the prison or medical or court returns. These holding cells are steel mesh or steel bar cages.
1998		L. Stringer Grand Central Winter (1999) 67: By the time Jersey hit ‘the cage’ – that little room in the court building where he’d be thrown together with a court-appointed lawyer [...] he’d be all theirs.
2006		(con. 1972) Jurgenson & Cea Circle of Six 59: [Q]uestioning prisoners in the overflowing detention cell or cage.
2018-20		T. Thorne (ed.) ‘Drill Slang Glossary’ at Forensic Linguistic Databank 🌐 Cage – prison (cell) .

9. (US) an automobile.

1997		(con. 1970s) G. Pelecanos King Suckerman (1998) 94: Buncha boofers in a cage just pulled up.
1999		W. Gibson All Tomorrow’s Parties 150: ‘I can’t ride now [...] Tangled with a cage.’ A car, and she thought how long it had been since she’d heard that.
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 216: I’m just getting the feel of this cage. I never rode Swede before.

10. (US gay) a depressing room or apartment.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 40: cage (fr pros sl) dismal hotel room or apartment.

11. (N.Z. gay) a private room used by male and female sex workers.

2010

(con. 1940s/50s) W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 77: Cage [...] was recalled by a number of workers operating discreetly after the Second World War in New Zealand.