cooped up
Kept in place
Cooped up describes being confined in a small or restricted space, often against one's will or for too long.
The phrase comes from a coop—a cage for poultry.
It suggests restlessness from lack of freedom or movement: The kids have been cooped up inside all week because of the rain.
I felt cooped up in that tiny apartment.
- boxed inConfined without options
- penned inConfined within barriers
- confinedKept within bounds
- imprisonedHeld in custody
- cabin feverDistress from extended confinement
stir-crazy · climbing the walls · locked up · homebound · restricted · snowed in · four walls · hemmed in · boxed up · quarantined · claustrophobic · sequestered · locked in · pent · trapped · shut-in · windowless · incarcerated
- expressions about containmentboxed in, bottled up, hemmed in, penned in, locked in
- farm idiomsmake hay while the sun shines, cream of the crop, put the cart before the horse, till the cows come home, buy the farm
- captivitycaptive, prisoner, detained, imprisoned, incarcerated
- snowed insnowed in, snowbound, stranded, trapped, stuck
cooped upfree
Without payment or restriction
unconfined · on the loose · out and about · liberated · at large
cooped upliberated
Released from confinement
unburdened · free-spirited · carefree · expansive · stretched out
coop, caged, enclosed, coops, uppercut, cooped, hencoop, hencoops