GILDED CAGE Definition & Meaning

gilded cage

To be like “a bird in a gilded cage” is to live in luxury but without freedom: “Because the movie star could not go out without being recognized and pursued, she stayed in her penthouse, living like a bird in a gilded cage.”

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Idioms and Phrases

The encumbrances or limitations that often accompany material wealth, as in She had furs, jewelry, whatever money could buy, but was trapped in a gilded cage. This metaphoric expression indicating that riches cannot buy happiness was popularized (and possibly coined) in a song, “A Bird in a Gilded Cage” (1990; lyrics by Arthur J. Lamb, music by Harry von Tilzer), about a young girl marrying for wealth instead of love and paying for luxury with a life of regret.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

In transplanting this device to a hypervisible celebrity, it affords Finn the chance to play on a bigger stage, producing stylized musical numbers, backstage antics, public meltdowns, fan frenzy and private anguish in Skye’s luxury gilded cage.

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With “Maria,” he’s got the gilded cage, but little of the bird’s desperation.

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Fabio Capello lead a campaign that mirrored his countenance - grim, austere and discontented, the Italian choosing to base England in a gilded cage at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace outside Rustenburg.

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Trump would be put in a gilded cage.

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It shows Taylor and Burton essentially confined to the gilded cage of their New York hotel suite.

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Gilded Age gilder

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gilded cage

Idioms and Phrases

Example Sentences