monkey

A member of the clade Simiiformes other than those in the clade Hominoidea containing apes, generally (but not universally) distinguished by small size, tails, and cheek pouches.

Noun

  1. A member of the clade Simiiformes other than those in the clade Hominoidea containing apes, generally (but not universally) distinguished by small size, tails, and cheek pouches.
    • He had been visiting an area zoo when a monkey swung from its tree perch, swiped his glasses and hurled them into a hippo hole.
    • They thought of, I don’t know, monkeys and caipirinhas and samba.” - 2007 September 20, Eric Wilson, “Blame It on Rio and Gisele”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 18 Sep 2020:
    • Following monkeys, apes, and other creatures in their habitats, these scientists turned their notes and observations into voluminous, quantitative data. […] Other examples of nonhuman self-domestication in the wild...
  2. Any simian, including humans.
  3. Any simian primate other than hominids; any monkey or ape.
    • Chimpanzees are known to form bands to hunt and kill other monkeys.
  4. A human considered to resemble monkeys in some way, including:
    • Stop misbehaving, you cheeky little monkey!
    • "Yes. He gets to Paris at seven in the morning. He promised to telephone the first thing." "You expensive little monkey!" "Why?" "It's ten shillings for three minutes, or something like that, and you have to go to the...

    1. (informal, sometimes offensive) A naughty or mischievous person, especially a child.

    2. (slang) The person in the motorcycle sidecar in sidecar racing.

    3. (derogatory) Synonym of idiot: a person of minimal intelligence.

      Synonyms: idiot

    4. (derogatory) Synonym of uggo: an unattractive person, especially one whose face supposedly resembles a monkey's.

      Synonyms: uggo

    5. (slang, derogatory) Synonym of puppet: a person dancing to another's tune, a person controlled or directed by another.

      • No, no, no, not you. I want to talk to the organ grinder, not the monkey.

      Synonyms: puppet

    6. (slang, usually derogatory) A menial employee who does a repetitive job supposedly requiring minimal intelligence.

      • code monkey
      • grease monkey
      • phone monkey

    7. (slang, highly derogatory, ethnic slur, offensive) A black person.

      • Animalistic dehumanisation, 'simianisation' and the animalising of black bodies through metaphorically likening these individuals to 'baboons,' 'monkeys' or 'apes' reveals racialised animality discourse in South Africa....
  5. A penis.
  6. A small trading vessel of the sixteenth century.
  7. The vessel in which a mess receives its full allowance of grog.
  8. The weight of a pile driver or drop hammer.
    • Someone handed me a monkey of grog. I forced myself to sip it, not down it. - 2007, Broos Campbell, No Quarter, page 111:
  9. A fluid consisting of hydrochloric acid and zinc, used in the process of soldering.
  10. Synonym of five hundred, especially (UK) 500 pounds sterling or (US, dated) 500 dollars.
    • [I] gave her a monkey — just half my last thou — and started to earn some more. - 1918, Aleister Crowley, Robbing Miss Horniman:
    • A thousandth of a million squid or two monkeys Or a whole fifty scores - 2004, The Streets, “It Was Supposed to Be So Easy”, in A Grand Don’t Come for Free:

    Synonyms: five hundred

    Coordinate Terms: gorilla

  11. Synonym of face card.

    Synonyms: face card

  12. A person's temper, said to be "up" when they are angry.
    • I was out rather late one night, when the foreman of my department, who owed me a grudge, abused me like a dog, and told me I might consider myself dismissed, and that I should be paid my wages in the morning. I don't...
    • Reminded me of running up that hill by the Marne – or was it the Morin? – in 1914 when Kearey had got his face ripped open by a bullet and Hedley had got his monkey up [Lost his temper, Ed.] over the Huns killing 8 of...

Origin

Uncertain: * May be derived from monk + -ey (diminutive suffix), * or borrowed from Middle Low German Moneke, the name of the son of Martin the Ape in Reynard the Fox (which may represent an unattested colloquial Middle Low German *moneke, *moneken), itself of uncertain origin: ** Possibly derived from a Romance term represented by Late Middle French monne (whence Modern French mone (“monkey”)) or earlier Old French monnekin (“monkey”), originally Monnekin, the name of a monkey in Li Dis d'Entendement. Compare also Old French and Middle French monin (“monkey”). *** The French terms may have been borrowed from Italian monna (“monkey”), from Old Spanish mona (“female monkey”), itself a shortening of mamona, variant of maimón, from Arabic مَيْمُون (maymūn, “baboon”)). *** However, Old French monnekin may alternatively be unrelated to the other terms, instead being a borrowing of Early...

Forms

monkeys monkies monky monkie

Synonyms

monkey

Hypernyms

primate mammal animal

Hyponyms

Old World monkey New World monkey aotid athelid callitrichid cebid pithechiid

Derived

antimonkey Azara's night monkey baboon-monkey bare-eared squirrel monkey barrel of monkeys bleeding-heart monkey bleed the monkey blue monkey bonnet monkey brass monkey brown woolly monkey Burmese snub-nosed monkey butt monkey capuchin monkey cheeky monkey cheese-eating surrender monkey cheese monkey chunky monkey code monkey cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey common squirrel monkey de Brazza's monkey diademed monkey diadem monkey

Verb

  1. To meddle; to mess (with).
    • Please don't monkey with the controls if you don't know what you're doing.
    • “As an inventor,” Bob Mason suggested, “you're a howling success at shooting craps! […] Why monkey with weak imitations when you can come close to the original?” - 1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter XII, in The Understanding...

    Synonyms: interfere fiddle

  2. To mimic; to ape.
    • He winked at Liza, who monkeyed him, holding her own eye shut. - 2011, Elizabeth Mosier, The Playgroup, page 83:

Forms

monkeys monkeying monkeyed monkied monky monkie

Related

ape primate

Derived

monkey around monkey up spank the monkey