mewed

Mewed is the past tense of mew, a verb describing the high-pitched crying sound made by a cat or gull.

The word captures that distinctive plaintive vocalization: The kitten mewed pitifully at the door.

Mewed can also mean confined or caged, from an older sense of mew as an enclosure where hawks were kept during molting.

This sense survives mainly in literary contexts: She felt mewed up in the tiny apartment.