to rattle the cage
1
7.8
- idiom
- Informal
:
provocar
- If you want to inspire change, you have to rattle the cage and challenge the status quo.
Examples
-
When you feel stuck, that hero inside you was trying to rattle the cage and say, wake up, we got stuff to do.
-
Sometimes, you need to rattle the cage to get people's attention about important issues.
-
He decided to rattle the cage during the meeting to see how his colleagues would react.
Synonyms
246
1.0
Make someone slightly angry or bothered by small repeated actions
144
3.6
Annoy someone again and again to make them react
48
4.8
To make people feel strong emotions like anger or fear
9
7.2
Upset people by challenging usual views
8
6.8
Make someone angry or annoyed on purpose by teasing them
3
8.4
To do something on purpose to make an angry or dangerous person react
1
7.1
To do or say something on purpose to annoy someone
1
7.9
To make someone angry or upset
1
8.7
Tease someone to make them react
Antonyms
How Provoking
- NSFW
72
7.7
- US
31
7.6
- Informal
1
7.8
246
1.0
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The image of shaking or 'rattling' a physical cage maps fairly directly onto disturbing or agitating someone confined or constrained, so a learner who knows 'rattle' and 'cage' can often infer a general sense of causing disturbance. However, the specific idiomatic nuance of deliberate provocation to elicit a reaction is a pragmatic extension that is not fully predictable from the parts, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Rattle the cage gives a clear image: to rattle is to shake and a cage is where a bird is kept. If you shake a bird's cage the bird gets upset and reacts, so the phrase now means 'to provoke or disturb someone'.