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Glite Dictionary
🐾 To put in cage 🚫 To restrict
to encage

to encage

7.7
To keep a person, idea, or feeling within strict limits
  • verb
  • /ɪnˈkeɪdʒ/
translation icon : restringir
  • The new regulations encage the citizens in a web of rules that limit their freedom of expression.

Examples

  • They felt encaged by the oppressive laws that restricted their ability to travel freely.

  • We learn via the car's radio that the entire town has been "quarantined," safely encaged, like those exotic, out-of-place love birds.

    Blog text (2)

  • Many artists feel encaged by societal expectations that dictate what is considered acceptable art.

Synonyms

to confine
vsto encage
215 4.2

Keep someone or something within limits, for example in a small space

is used especially in figurative or non literal ways
to confine to
vsto encage
106 4.8

To keep something within set limits, for example in a room or a topic

is broader, applying often in figurative or non literal senses
to box in
vsto encage
8 4.7

To stop a person or thing from moving, acting freely and making choices

is often used figuratively rather than for physical enclosure
to enfetter
vsto encage
  • Archaic
9.9

To limit someone's freedom or creativity

is similar but is frequently used in non literal contexts

Antonyms

to release
∞ 1.8

To let someone or something go free from being held

to liberate
104 4.3

Set someone free from prison or unfair control

How Restricted

to shackle
35 6.2
to encage
7.7
to confine
215 4.2
to restrict
361 3.1
to limit
∞ 2.1

Surface Forms

encage infinitive
encaged past
encaged past participle
encaging present participle
encages third person singular

Morphology

encage = cage (transparent) = en + cage

The figurative sense is a straightforward metaphorical extension of 'put into a cage' and remains inferable from 'en-' + 'cage'.

Etymology

Encage can also mean to limit or hold back someone or an idea. Think of it as en- 'in' plus cage, so to encage something is to keep it inside limits.