Softly cried out like a bird shut in (6)

I believe the answer is:

cooped

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'shut in' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'softly cried out like a bird' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'softly' could be 'p' (short for piano, musical term for softly) and 'p' is found in the answer.
'bird' could be 'oo' and 'oo' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

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