# monkey

Pronunciation: say "MUNG-kee" /ˈmʌŋki/

## Noun

1. A primate, usually small with a long tail, that lives mainly in trees; loosely, any ape as well.
   - Simple: A clever animal, usually with a long tail, that lives in trees. People sometimes call apes monkeys too.
   - _A monkey can use its tail almost like a fifth limb to grip branches._
   - _Researchers watched how the monkeys shared fruit within the troop._
2. A child or other person who is naughty or full of mischief. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A playful, badly behaved person, especially a child full of mischief.
   - _That cheeky monkey hid my keys again and won't tell me where._
   - _Their grandsons are lovable little monkeys who never stop moving._
4. A derogatory term for a person regarded as having very little intelligence.
   - Simple: An insulting word for a person who is very foolish or stupid.
   - _Only a monkey would ignore a warning printed that clearly._
   - _He called them monkeys for botching such a simple task._
5. A lowly worker who performs a repetitive job supposedly requiring minimal intelligence. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A worker who does boring, repeated tasks thought to need little skill.
   - _Management treated the interns as monkeys, handing them the same dull task for months._
   - _She quit because she was tired of being the office monkey._
8. An addiction or compulsive habit, especially a dependence on drugs. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A habit or addiction that is very hard to stop, especially a drug habit.
   - _Gambling had been a monkey on her back since college, and in the end it cost her the house._
   - _The monkey on her back grew heavier each month as the painkillers took hold._
6. A puppet; a person controlled or directed by someone else. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A person who only does what someone else tells them to do.
   - _The committee chair is just a monkey; the real decisions come from the donors._
   - _She refused to be anyone's monkey, even when standing up to the director cost her the job._
10. In slang, a sum of five hundred, chiefly £500 in Britain, or, dated in the US, $500. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A slang name for five hundred pounds, or in older American use, five hundred dollars.
   - _He bet a monkey on the favorite and lost the lot._
   - _She still owed him a monkey by the end of the night._
11. Someone's temper, spoken of as being "up" when the person is angry. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A person's temper. If someone's monkey is up, they are angry.
   - _One careless remark about his driving got his monkey up for the rest of the trip._
   - _You could tell the coach's monkey was up from the way he slammed his clipboard down._
7. A highly offensive ethnic slur for a Black person, insultingly likening them to a monkey. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A very offensive, racist word used to insult a Black person by comparing them to an animal.
12. A dance popularized by Major Lance in 1963, now usually reduced to its upper-body move of exaggerated drumming motions with the arms.
   - Simple: A dance from the 1960s where you swing your arms up and down like playing drums.
   - _Within months of the record's release, teenagers everywhere were doing the monkey._
   - _When the band played a sixties tune, Grandpa jumped up and did the monkey, pounding the air like an invisible drum kit._
13. An unattractive person, especially one whose face supposedly resembles a monkey's.
   - Simple: An unkind word for an ugly person, especially one with a face like a monkey's.
   - _Schoolyard bullies branded the new boy a monkey for his jutting ears._
   - _The gossip columnist sneered that the singer had been a real monkey before the surgery._

## Verb

3. To meddle or interfere, especially with something one shouldn't be handling. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: To touch or mess with something you should leave alone.
   - _Don't monkey with the thermostat; the technician just finished calibrating it._
   - _Someone had been monkeying with the office printer, and now it only prints blank pages._
9. To mimic or imitate someone, frequently in a mocking manner.
   - Simple: To copy someone's actions or speech, often to make fun of them.

## Other meanings

- (noun) Any simian primate: a broad use of the word that, in this sense, takes in humans as well.
- (noun) A vulgar slang word for the penis.
- (noun) In sidecar racing, the passenger carried in the sidecar beside the motorcycle's rider.
- (noun) A king, queen or jack; a face card, especially in blackjack.
- (noun) In a drop hammer or pile driver, the heavy weight that is lifted and released to deliver each blow.
- (noun) A fluid of hydrochloric acid and zinc, used in soldering.
- (noun) On board ship, the container in which a mess is issued its full ration of grog.
- (noun) A type of small merchant vessel in use during the sixteenth century.

## Origin

The origin is uncertain. It may derive from 'monk' plus the diminutive suffix '-ey', or be borrowed from Middle Low German 'Moneke', the name of Martin the Ape's son in Reynard the Fox. It has also been linked to Romance forms such as Middle French 'monne' and Old French 'monnekin', possibly going back through Italian and Spanish to Arabic 'maymūn' ('baboon'); alternatively, Old French 'monnekin' may instead come from Early Middle Dutch 'mannekin' ('little man').

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/monkey (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).