gilded cage

Cultural  

1. 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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gilded cage Idioms  

1. 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

See Examples For:

gilded cage

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2024

The story of Nora, freeing herself from the gilded cage of her marriage to a profoundly self-centered man, reverberated with him on a societal level.

From New York Times ● May 23, 2023

Living in the White House, he said, is “a little like a gilded cage in terms of being able to walk outside and do things.”

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 12, 2023

"I feel really sorry for them, because in many ways they're born into a gilded cage that has isolated them from reality," he told the BBC in 2015.

From BBC ● May 3, 2022

The court ladies, with their bright plumage and twittering voices, were like so many birds in a gilded cage.

From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein