cooped up
28
5.5
- idiom
- /kuːpt ʌp/
- Informal
:
encerrado
- 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
Fortunately, 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
37
3.2
A space that is too small for people to move easily
15
6.7
A small, closed space that makes you feel trapped
7
6.3
Feeling trapped by walls or rules that stop you moving
3
6.3
Unable to do things freely because of limits like walls or rules
1
6.2
A space that is uncomfortably small and makes you feel trapped
Kept in one small space and unable to leave
A room or space that is too small and cramped
Unable to escape from a dangerous place or situation, for example when surrounded by attackers
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.