Menagerie

Origin

French ménagerie, from Middle French, management of a household or farm, from menage

• 1676

Definitions

• 1a : a place where animals are kept and trained especially for exhibition

b : a collection of wild or foreign animals kept especially for exhibition

• 2: a varied mixture <a menagerie of comedians

Description

A menagerie is/was a form of keeping common and exotic animals in captivity that preceded the modern zoological garden. The term was first used in seventeenth century France in reference to the management of household or domestic stock. Later, it came to be used primarily in reference to aristocratic or royal animal collections. The French-language "Methodical Encyclopaedia" of 1782 defines a menagerie as an "establishment of luxury and curiosity." Later on, the term referred also to traveling animal collections that exhibited wild animals at fairs across Europe and the Americas.[1]