different between cage vs sty

English

Etymology

From Middle English cage, from Old French cage, from Latin cavea. Doublet of jail.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ke?d?/
• Rhymes: -e?d?

Noun

cage (plural cages)

1. An enclosure made of bars, normally to hold animals.
2. The passenger compartment of a lift.
3. (field hockey or ice hockey, water polo) The goal.
4. (US, derogatory, slang) An automobile.
5. (figuratively) Something that hinders freedom.
6. (athletics) The area from which competitors throw a discus or hammer.
7. An outer framework of timber, enclosing something within it.
8. (engineering) A skeleton frame to limit the motion of a loose piece, such as a ball valve.
9. A wirework strainer, used in connection with pumps and pipes.
10. (mining) The drum on which the rope is wound in a hoisting whim.
11. (baseball) The catcher's wire mask.
12. (graph theory) A regular graph that has as few vertices as possible for its girth.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

cage (third-person singular simple present cages, present participle caging, simple past and past participle caged)

1. To confine in a cage; to put into and keep in a cage.
2. (figuratively) To restrict someone's movement or creativity.
3. (aviation) To immobilize an artificial horizon.

4. To track individual responses to direct mail, either (advertising) to maintain and develop mailing lists or (politics) to identify people who are not eligible to vote because they do not reside at the registered addresses.

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• cega

French

Etymology

From Old French cage, from Latin cavea.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ka?/

Noun

cage f (plural cages)

1. cage

   cage d'escalier - staircase

2. (soccer, colloquial) area, penalty area

Derived terms

Further reading

• “cage” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Middle English

Alternative forms

• kage, gage

Etymology

From Old French cage, from Latin cavea.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ka?d?(?)/

Noun

cage (plural cages)

1. A cage or pen.
2. A cell, enclosure or room of diminutive proportions.
3. A platform or deck.

Descendants

• English: cage
• Scots: cage

References

• “c??e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-22.

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sta?/
• Rhymes: -a?

Etymology 1

From Middle English sty, from Old English st?, sti? (“sty, pen, a wooden enclosure; hall”, chiefly in compounds), from Proto-Germanic *stij?. Cognate with German Steige (“hen-coop”), Danish sti (“enclosure for swine, sheep, hens, etc.”), Swedish stia (“sty for pigs, geese, etc.”), Norwegian sti (“flock of sheep”), Icelandic stía (“a kennel”).

Noun

sty (plural sties)

1. A pen or enclosure for swine.
2. (figuratively) A messy, dirty or debauched place.

Synonyms

• (enclosure for swine): pigpen, pigsty
• (messy or dirty place): hovel, pigsty

Translations

Verb

sty (third-person singular simple present sties, present participle stying, simple past and past participle stied)

1. To place in, or as if in, a sty
2. To live in a sty, or any messy or dirty place

Etymology 2

From Middle English stien, sti?en, from Old English st??an (“to go; ascend, mount”), from Proto-Germanic *st?gan?, from Proto-Indo-European *steyg?-. Cognate with Dutch stijgen, German steigen, Norwegian Bokmål stige, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish stiga, Old Norse stíga.

Alternative forms

• stee, stie, stigh, stye

Verb

sty (third-person singular simple present sties, present participle stying, simple past and past participle stied)

1. (obsolete) To ascend, rise up, climb. [9th-17th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.xi:

     The beast impatient of his smarting wound, / And of so fierce and forcible despight, / Thought with his wings to stye aboue the ground [...].

   • From this lower tract he dared to stie up to the clowdes.

   • 1621, Richard Montague, Diatribae upon the first part of the late History of Tithes

     Led along, as some Creatures are, by the Noses, and voluntarily hood-winked; or like seeled Doves, sty up, you know not whither, nor how far.

   • 1652, Edward Benlowes, Theophila, or Love's Sacrifice

     That she might sty to the seat of Beatifick Mirth.

Derived terms

• styan
• stirrup

Related terms

• stile

Translations

Noun

sty (plural sties)

1. (Britain, dialectal) A ladder.

Translations

Etymology 3

Probably a back-formation from styany, mistaken for "sty-on-eye" but correctly from Middle English styany, composed of styan ("sty"; from Old English st??ende, present participle of st?gan (“to rise”)) + y (“eye”).

Alternative forms

• stye

Noun

sty (plural sties)

1. (medicine) An inflammation of the eyelid.

Translations

Anagrams

• YTS

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English sti?, st?, from Proto-Germanic *stij?.

Alternative forms

• stye, sty?e

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sti?/

Noun

sty (plural styes)

2. A pigsty (pen or set of pens for pigs)
3. (rare) Any other crude dwelling or abode.

Descendants

• English: sty

References

• “st?, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-08.

Etymology 2

From Old English st??, from Proto-Germanic *st?g?.

Alternative forms

• sti, stie, stye, stiyhe, sti?e, sti?he

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sti?/

Noun

sty (plural styes or sti?en)

2. A path, track or street.
3. (figuratively) One's chosen pathway or choices in life.
4. (figuratively, rare) A short narrative.

References

• “st?(e, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-08.