jackanapes

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But the jackanapes are always runnin 'round in some disguise

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Definitions (10)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A conceited or impudent person.
  2. noun A mischievous child.
  3. noun Archaic A monkey or an ape.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples

  • The implications of what Mickey had just said were phenomenal. —  Dangerous Lady
  • But the jackanapes are always runnin 'round in some disguise —  Hot Air » Top Picks
  • Since you were at such mummings, you might, if you would, have at least saved the credit of my household, by dressing him up as a jackanapes--bring him hither, fellows Adam Woodcock was too honest and downright, to permit blame to light upon the youth, when it was undeserved. —  The Abbot
  • Great was the savan's disdain; but, chancing ere long to find himself in a corner with the jackanapes, got into conversation with him, when he was somewhat ill-prepared for the good sense of the jackanapes, but was altogether thrown aback, upon subsequently being whispered by a friend that the jackanapes was almost as great a savan as himself, being no less a personage than Sir Humphrey Davy The above anecdote is given just here by way of an anticipative reminder to such readers as, from the kind of jaunty levity, or what may have passed for such, hitherto for the most part appearing in the man with the traveling-cap, may have been tempted into a more or less hasty estimate of him; that such readers, when they find the same person, as they presently will, capable of philosophic and humanitarian discourse--no mere casual sentence or two as heretofore at times, but solidly sustained throughout an almost entire sitting; that they may not, like the American savan, be thereupon betrayed into any surprise incompatible with their own good opinion of their previous penetration The merchant's narration being ended, the other would not deny but that it did in some degree affect him. —  The Confidence-Man
  • Great was the savan's disdain; but, chancing ere long to find himself in a corner with the jackanapes, got into conversation with him, when he was somewhat ill-prepared for the good sense of the jackanapes, but was altogether thrown aback, upon subsequently being whispered by a friend that the jackanapes was almost as great a savan as himself, being no less a personage than Sir Humphrey Davy. —  The Confidence-Man
 

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Jackanapes has been looked up 432 times, favorited once, listed 31 times, and commented on once.

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. From Middle English Jack Napis, nickname of William de la Pole, Fourth Earl and First Duke of Suffolk (1396-1450).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. For orig. Jack o' apes, Jack of apes, i. e. orig., it is supposed, a man who exhibited performing apes; hence a vague term of contempt, the stress of thought being laid on apes, whence the occasionally assumed singular jackanape, and the use of the word in the simple meaning ape. Cf. the later imitated forms, johnanapes and jane-of-apes.
 

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/ˈdʒækəneɪps/
by American Heritage

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