cooped up
28
5.5
- idiom
- /kuːpt ʌp/
- Informal
- After days of being cooped up inside due to the rain, the children were eager to go outside and play.
- stay cooped up
- feel cooped up
- cooped up in the house
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Watch on YouTubeFortunately, I'm cooped up here because I finally caught COVID.
- Fortunately, I'm cooped up here because I finally caught COVID.
- That kind of stuff went out and I was already cooped up and what, what, what else is there to do?
- And it was, it was like, whoa, the women in Maine, they've been, they've been cooped up.
- I've had the opportunity to do a few shows here and there in different places, but the people are just so hungry for it because they've been locked up and cooped up too.
- Like I'll I'll they've been cooped up with their kids for their kids bro and they just want to go fucking town.
- It's that being cooped up in your home is going to reveal the reality of how you actually, whether or not you actually connect.
Examples
-
Much better for the dog, said Mrs. Hershleder, than being cooped up in some tiny apartment.
Fiction book (1995) -
They've been cooped up for hours.
-
You spent all winter cooped up in here.
-
How do you think I feel cooped up in these rooms?
-
After more than five days of being cooped up in the ship, she was going outside.
Fiction book (2001) -
We're rather tired of being cooped up in laboratories all the time.
Fiction book (1999) -
You've been cooped up in there too long.
-
I don't like being cooped up like this.
-
Gail wonders whether Cille is right, that they have been cooped up in the car for too long.
Fiction book (2001) -
Morton was so city-pale, cooped up all week inside the gray, factory-like university.
Fiction book (1998)
Synonyms
361
4.4
Unable to escape from a dangerous place or situation, for example when surrounded by attackers
62
3.2
A space that is too small for people to move easily
61
3.7
Kept in one small space and unable to leave
12
6.3
Unable to do things freely because of limits like walls or rules
11
6.7
A small, closed space that makes you feel trapped
2
6.2
A space that is uncomfortably small and makes you feel trapped
1
6.3
Feeling trapped by walls or rules that stop you moving
1
9.9
A room or space that is too small and cramped
Antonyms
How Confined
Surface Forms
Morphology
coop + up
The meaning 'confined or restricted' is directly and transparently derived from 'coop' (to lock or confine someone in a small space) combined with the particle 'up', which here adds a sense of enclosure or completion. This verb + particle composition is a regular English pattern, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily infer 'cooped up' means confined or stuck in a small space.
Etymology
The adjective cooped up comes from coop, a small cage for birds. Being kept in a coop makes birds feel 'stuck' and restless, so cooped up now means kept in a small space and feeling 'trapped' or uneasy.