Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Resembling an ape.
- adjective Slavishly or foolishly imitative.
- adjective Silly; outlandish.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Having the qualities of an ape; inclined to imitate in a servile manner; hence, foolishly foppish, affected, or trifling: as, apish manners.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Having the qualities of an ape; prone to imitate in a servile manner. Hence: Apelike; fantastically silly; foppish; affected; trifling.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Resembling or characteristic of an
ape .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective being or given to servile imitation
Etymologies
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Examples
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According to Locke, dance teachers should eliminate “apish affected postures” and “the jigging part” that leads children away from “perfect graceful carriage.”
A Renegade History of the United States Thaddeus Russell 2010
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A twisted and wizened complex of apish features, perforated by upturned, sky-open, Mongolian nostrils, by a mouth that sagged from a huge upper-lip and faded precipitately into a retreating chin, by peering querulous eyes that blinked as blink the eyes of denizens of monkey-cages.
THE RED ONE 2010
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She is hideously ugly, apish, dirt-caked, a pig's tail thrust in her ear lobe hole, still dripping blood.
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It is a sad sad day when our only saviour against the primitive apish hordes leaves us defenceless.
EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - Chuck Heston is out. Dead at age 84. 2008
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You have accorded me the honor of asking me to submit to the Academy a report on my previous apish life.
The Metamorphosis, in The Penal Colony,and Other Stories Franz Kafka 2000
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Between the boards, of course, there was a continuous gap, which, upon first discovering it, I hailed with the blissful howling of ignorance; however, this gap was not wide enough for me to slip even my tail through it, nor was I able to widen it with all my apish strength.
The Metamorphosis, in The Penal Colony,and Other Stories Franz Kafka 2000
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My ape nature, rolling head over heels, rushed out of me and away, so that my first tutor almost turned apish himself in the process, soon gave up teaching, and had to be carted off to a mental hospital.
The Metamorphosis, in The Penal Colony,and Other Stories Franz Kafka 2000
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When I come home late at night from banquets, from scientific societies, from social get-togethers, a small, half-trained female chimpanzee is waiting for me, and I have a good time with her in apish fashion.
The Metamorphosis, in The Penal Colony,and Other Stories Franz Kafka 2000
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He lurched over to me at the bar and got regular for a second: “This afternoon the bitch told me I was an apish brute,” he said.
The Dadlands Saloon Jonathan Twingley 2009
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He lurched over to me at the bar and got regular for a second: “This afternoon the bitch told me I was an apish brute,” he said.
The Dadlands Saloon Jonathan Twingley 2009
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