menagerie
muh-NAJ-uh-ree · noun
FrenchEnglish
Origin
Menagerie comes from French ménagerie, itself derived from ménager, meaning "to keep house."
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Journey
Housekeeping once included the care of domestic animals, so a word for managing a household came to describe a place where animals were kept and shown.
Related words
It shares its root with ménager, the French word for keeping house, showing how domestic care of animals grew into a word for animal collections.
More words
From French