Definition of "cage"

For his father had / never a house but the cage.

c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene ii], lines 48–49

Stone walls do not a prison make, / Nor iron bars a cage.

1642, Richard Lovelace, To Althea, from Prison, stanza 4, lines 1–2

My body is a cage / That keeps me from dancing with the one I love / But my mind holds the key

2007, Jeremy Gara, Régine Chassagne (lyrics and music), “My Body Is a Cage”, in Neon Bible, performed by Arcade Fire

Cage, in carpentry, is an outer work of timber inclosing another within it. Thus the cage of a stair is the wooden inclosure that encircles it.

1842, Joseph Gwilt, “A Glossary of Terms Used by Architects”, in An Encyclopædia of Architecture, Historical, Theoretical, and Practical‎, 2nd edition, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, published 1851, page 941

And the row of human captors, ever leering, They who caged me, Know their power and gloat on my captivity.

1923, Animal World: An Advocate of Humanity, page 33

Laying out the zoo on horseback, he went about making plans to combine his scrubby mesas and canyons with moats, and thereby eliminate caging many large animals—a revolutionary advance in American zoo design.

2000, Bernard Livingston, Zoo: Animals, People, Places, page 95

The industrial practice of caging commercial laying hens has given caged housing a bad narne.

2010, Gail Damerow, Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, 3rd Edition

Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.

2013 July-August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4

By caging chickens, farmers broke the cycle and had to busy themselves with feeding, cleaning and pest control activities.

2018, Stomu Yamash’ta, Tadashi Yagi, Stephen Hill, The Kyoto Manifesto for Global Economics