cageful

English

Etymology

cage +‎ -ful

Noun

cageful (plural cagefuls or cagesful)

1. That which can fit into a cage.
   • 1827 August 4, “Two Years in New South Wales: […]. By P. Cunningham, […].”, in The Literary Gazette; and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c., number 550, London: […] James Moyes, […], page 500:

     Although all you see are English faces, and you hear no other language but English spoken, yet you soon become aware that you are in a country very different from England, by the number of parrots and other birds of strange note and plumage which you observe hanging at so many doors, and cagesful of which you will soon see exposed for sale as you proceed.

   • 1858 July, Perry Collins, “Explorations of the Amoor River”, in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, volume 17, number 98, page 229:

     The Cossacks chattered and screamed, like a cageful of parrots stirred up by some mischievous boy […]

   • 1909 March 27, “Stopping the Winding. Does the Trades Dispute Act Apply?”, in The Merthyr Express, Aberdare and East Glamorgan Herald, Tredegar and West Monmouth Times, 45th year, number 2206, Merthyr Tydfil, page 4:

     Witness called the fireman and the other fireman to take their names, and he sent for a horse to pull the tram out, and he allowed three cagesful of the men, about sixty, to go out.

   • 1930, Talbot Mundy, chapter 14, in Black Light‎^[1], Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill:

     “ […] I should say she’s as safe as a canary in a cageful of cats.”

   • 1930 March 23, Albert P[ayson] Terhune, “A Gallant Little Dog”, in Dayton Daily News‎^[2], volume LIII, number 212, Dayton, Ohio:

     Ginger used to sleep in this room, guarding the cagesful of birds. […] There were still several cagesful of flapping and squawking and smothering canaries left in that basement room.

   • 1948, Electroplating & Metal Finishing‎^[3]:

     The enamelling shop uses an I.C.I. degreasing plant with a most useful air hoist fitted to eliminate lifting of cagesful of clock cases by manual effort — a further instance of the use of air power in this factory.

   • 1956 December 13, Phyllis Battelle, “Oh Dear, No Deer: Christmas Not Same in Supersonic Age”, in The Indianapolis News, page 40:

     We left Mr. Luke to wander through the Gimbel menagerie, eight cagesful of animals, from camel to zebra, which had been rented from a game farm in upstate New York.

   • 1961, Robert A. Heinlein, chapter 29, in Stranger in a Strange Land, New York: Avon, →OCLC, page 299:

     I looked at a cageful of monkeys and suddenly I saw all the mean and cruel and utterly unexplainable things I’ve seen and heard and read about in the time I’ve been with my own people […]

   • 1983 December 9, Frederick M. Winship, “Museum Exhibition Honors Designer”, in Alexandria Daily Town Talk, volume 101, number 268, Alexandria-Pineville, La., page C-2:

     The colors are so brilliant, when the master is not working in his trademark black and white, that some of the galleries with their stylized mannequins have the look of cagesful of preening macaws.