cagey
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cagey
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But they were pretty cagey against Nottingham Forest last week in the Premier League.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
As I peppered him with questions about the pink car and the Brinks armored truck, he remained cagey while slowly yielding information.
From Slate ● Aug. 14, 2026
Food professionals from haute cuisine down to trend-savvy sandwich shops tend to be cagey about where they get their ramps.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 13, 2026
A second US official was cagey when asked about whether an extension was likely to be agreed on Trump's trip.
From Barron's ● May 10, 2026
I was dealing with cagey people and I would be cagey.
From "Black Boy" by Richard Wright
![]()
With what's at stake, though, it might be a little cagier than that.
From BBC ● May 8, 2025
But others, especially those in the heavily polluting energy sector, have been cagier about their intentions or have resisted overhauling operations for the sake of planetary survival.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2021
The answer here was cagier, and I was asked not to quote it directly.
From Slate ● Aug. 12, 2021
The athletes, less forthright about their body-image issues, were cagier about their usage.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 31, 2020
Some cagier gamblers might wait until closer to game time to bet the underdogs.
From New York Times ● Sep. 18, 2019
Few can parry like Bacon — and he was at his cagiest about his work, speaking abstractly of the importance of “chance” and “accident.”
From New York Times ● Mar. 23, 2021
Yet here she was, about to match wits with some of the cleverest and cagiest card players in the world.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 1, 2020
Though I had expected Johns to be guarded about his past or his personal life, it was a surprise to find him cagiest about his artistic process.
From New York Times ● Feb. 18, 2019
She has a winsome translator, a force of loyal eunuch fighters and an adviser who happens to be the cagiest person in this entire story.
From New York Times ● Jun. 24, 2016
"The cagiest bat flies once too often," he said.
From The Bat by Avery Hopwood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.