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