ape

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various large, tailless Old World primates of the family Pongidae, including the chimpanzee, gorilla, gibbon, and orangutan.
2. n. A monkey.
3. n. A mimic or imitator.
4. n. Informal A clumsy or boorish person.
5. v. To mimic slavishly but often with an absurd result. See Synonyms at imitate.
6. idiom. go ape Informal To become wildly excited or enthusiastic: went ape at the party; goes ape over Thai cuisine.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A monkey; a quadrumanous animal; some animal of the old order Quadrumana; a member of one of the modern families Simiidœ, Cynopithecidœ, and Cebidœ, especially one which attracts attention by mimicking man.
2. n. More specifically, a tailless monkey; a monkey with a very short tail; a magot, macaque, or pig-tailed baboon: as, the Barbary ape (Inuus ecaudatus); the Celebes black ape (Cynopithecus niger).
3. n. Technically, a man-like monkey; a simian proper, or a member of the modern family Simiidœ, forming a kind of connecting link between man and the lower animals, and hence termed anthroid (which see). These apes are catarrhine simians without cheek-pouches or developed tail, and having a dental formula identical with that of man. The species are few, being only the gorilla, chimpanzee, orangs, and gibbons.
4. n. An imitator; a mimic.
5. n. A mischievous or silly mimic; hence, a fool; a dupe.
6. To imitate servilely; mimic, as an ape imitates human actions.
7. Synonyms Mimic, etc.
8. n. Gunnera petaloidea, a plant of the high mountain slopes of Hawaii, bearing large, broad, reniform leaves from two to three feet in width.
9. n. A name in the Hawaiian and Society islands of Alocasia macrorhiza, an aroid plant with large, oval, sagittate leaves. It is cultivated in India, China, and many of the Polynesian islands, where the leaves of the very young plant and the corms are eaten after volatilizing the acrid principle by drying or the application of heat. Also called apii in Hawaii.

Wiktionary

1. n. zoology A primate of the clade Hominoidea, generally larger than monkeys and distinguished from them by having no tail.
2. n. Any such primate other than a human.
3. n. derogatory An uncivilised person.
4. v. intransitive To behave like an ape.
5. v. transitive To imitate; mimic.
6. adj. Wild; crazy.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Zoöl.) A quadrumanous mammal, esp. of the family Simiadæ, having teeth of the same number and form as in man, and possessing neither a tail nor cheek pouches. The name is applied esp. to species of the genus Hylobates, and is sometimes used as a general term for all Quadrumana. The higher forms, the gorilla, chimpanzee, and ourang, are often called anthropoid apes or man apes.
2. n. One who imitates servilely (in allusion to the manners of the ape); a mimic.
3. n. obsolete A dupe.
4. v. To mimic, as an ape imitates human actions; to imitate or follow servilely or irrationally.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. imitate uncritically and in every aspect
2. v. represent in or produce a caricature of
3. n. any of various primates with short tails or no tail at all
4. n. person who resembles a nonhuman primate
5. n. someone who copies the words or behavior of another