cagey
/ˈkeɪd͡ʒi/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.39 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Uncommunicative; unwilling or hesitant to give information.
Example Sentences
- "We move like cagey tigers / Oh, we couldn't get closer than this"
- "Samara: I will be in the shadows watching, Shepard. You will never be alone -- this I swear. But you cannot barge in with guns and allies. Samara: Morinth is far too cagey -- she'd simply disappear. This is a subtle, delicate act. Trust me."
- "But with both sides in the Premier League's bottom three before the game began, the three points at stake made for a cagey match."
- "John F Kennedy’s secret talks with Soviet intelligence, surreptitious tape recordings and “girlfriend system” create a new portrait of a cunning and cagey JFK, according to a historian who has researched a treasure trove of recently released recordings and papers of the late president."
- "During a long interview about the startup, Bader and his co-founder Sean Dadashi were cagey about exactly how Ikaria works, as it’s still in development."
Etymology
Initially US colloquial, of unknown origin. A connection with the behavior of caged prisoners (wary and closed-lipped) and caged animals (wary) has been speculated. If so, by surface analysis, cage + -y.