CAGE, an inclosure made of wire, wicker, or the like, interwoven lattice-wise, for the confinement of birds or wild beasts. The word is French, cage, formed from the Italian gaglia, of the Latin carea, which has the same signification: a caveis theatralibus in quibus includebantur ferae.
Beasts were usually brought to Rome shut up in oaken or beechen cages artfully formed, and covered or shaded with boughs, that the creatures, deceived with the appearance of a wood, might fancy themselves in their forest. The fiercer sorts were pent in iron cages, lest wooden prisons might be broken through. In some prisons there are iron cages for the closer confinement of criminals.