Meaning of Menagerie | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A collection of live wild animals as an exhibition historically associated with the aristocracy and considered a precursor of modern zoos.
2. The enclosure where they are kept.
3. A diverse or miscellaneous group.
4. The orchestra of a theatre.
   obsolete, slang

Equivalents

Examples

“In Sacramento a crazed woman opened the cages of a circus menagerie for fear the animals might starve to death, and had been mauled by a lioness.”

“[Brigitte] Bardot, the stunning, desirable beauty who once stood for sexual freedom for women, spent the latter part of her life at her home near Saint Tropez with her husband and a menagerie of pets.”

“In one of his flights, he happened to alight in the middle of a ménagerie of peacocks. […] Just at this moment the master of the ménagerie called his birds into a little inclosure, that he might give them their breakfast. […] There was a pond in the middle of the ménagerie, that served him for a looking-glass.”

“Viperine venom was fixed upon, as being powerful enough to ensure a counteracting affection; and nine live vipers were procured from Prince Napoleon Jerome Buonaparte, who keeps a ménagerie of those animals for philosophical purposes.”

“People grew accustomed to the announcement of their names, the sight of their faces and sound of their voices, as to the quadrilles of Laurent’s Orchestra, or the ices of Gunter; and in the orchid-house-atmosphere of ministerial Soirées, amidst a confusion of tongues capable of deafening an artilleryman or the keeper of a ménagerie, the two sisters,—the most rising nobodies of the day,—might be heard sympathising cheerfully with Lady Brookdale concerning the annoyance likely to arise to poor Mrs. Warwick, from the death of her fellow-passenger in the Lightning!”

“In such a ménagerie of travellers, one occasionally meets with most desirable company, but caution and selection are needful, and in this matter our party was fortunate.”

CEFR level