Monkey definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (48)

American Heritage Dictionary (8)

noun Any of various long-tailed, medium-sized members of the order Primates, including the macaques, baboons, guenons, capuchins, marmosets, and tamarins and excluding the anthropoid apes and the prosimians.
noun One who behaves in a way suggestive of a monkey, as a mischievous child or a mimic.
noun The iron block of a pile driver.

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Century Dictionary (34)

A quadrumanous mammal of the order Primates and suborder Anthropoidea; a catarrhine or platyrrhine simian; any one of the Primates except man and the lemurs; an ape, baboon, marmoset, etc. The term is very vague, and has no technical or fixed restriction. Those monkeys which have very short tails and faces are commonly called apes, most of them belonging to the higher family Simiidæ. The monkeys with long faces like dogs are usually termed baboons; they are at the bottom of the series of Old World simians, in the family Cynopithecidæ. The small bushy-tailed monkeys of America are usually known as marmosets. Excluding these, the name monkey applies mainly to long-tailed simians of either hemisphere. All the Old World monkeys, in any sense of the word, are catarrhine, and have 32 teeth, as in man. They constitute two families, Simiidæ and Cynopithecidæ. (See cuts under Cercopithecus, Catarrhina, and Diana, 2.) All the New World monkeys are platyrrhine: there are two families, Cebidæ, with 36 teeth and mostly prehensile tails, and Mididæ or marmosets, with 32 teeth and bushy non-prehensile tails. (See cuts under Cebinæ, Eriodes, and Lagothrix.) The genera of monkeys are about 35 in number, including several that are fossil. The species are particularly numerous in Africa and South America, especially in the tropical parts. There are many, however, in the warmer parts of Asia, and even up to the snow-line; a single one is found in Europe, the Barbary ape, Inuus ecaudatus. (See cut at ape.) Almost all the leading species have specific names in the vernacular as well as their technical scientific designations. The strain of man 's bred out Into baboon and monkey. Shak., T. of A., i. l. 260.
An epithet applied to any one, especially to a boy or girl, in either real or pretended disapproval: sometimes expressing endearment. Now God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do for a father? Shak., Macbeth, iv. l. 59. Help your companions, but don't talk religious sentiment to them; and serve the poor, but, for your lives, you little monkeys, don't preach to them. Ruskin, Letter to Young Girls.
A pile-driving instrument with two handles, raised by pulleys, and guided in its descent so as to cause it to fall on the head of a pile and drive it into the ground; a fistuca; a beetlehead.

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Examples (50)

South Bend, Indiana, 1924, a monkey is arrested, convicted, and sentenced to pay a twenty-five dollar fine for smoking a cigarette. — F ;SF - vol 105 issue 01 - July 2003
The cartoonists all chose to draw Bush with big monkey ears and a huge, monkey-like upper lip, so drawing Bush as a monkey was a natural progression. — The Moderate Voice
Perhaps the monkey was afraid of being beaten. — The Curlytops and Their Pets or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection
To kill an ass or a monkey is a sin only less heinous. — The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV Kumhar-Yemkala
"He's awful soft and fuzzy, and he likes me Indeed the monkey was a nice, clean little chap, and he seemed to like Laddie. — Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's

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cat · rat · rabbit · snake · pig · wolf · elephant · bird · deer · lizard · ape · fox

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Origin unknown.

Century Dictionary (2)

Formerly also monkie, munkie, munkye (not found in Middle English, where only ape, the general Teutonic word, appears); prob., with double diminutive -k-ey, -k-ie (as also later in donkey), from Old French monne = Spanish Portuguese mona, from Italian monna, Old Italian mona, a female ape, a monkey (whence Old Italian diminutive monicchio (a form supposed by some, erroneously, to be the immediate source of the English word; the term, -icchio, from L. -iculus; also Old French monnine, monine, a monkey: see also mona, mono), apparently a particular use (as if ‘old woman’), in allusion to the resemblance of a monkey's face to the weazen face of an old crone, of monna, a woman, in familiar use (like English dame), ‘goody,’ ‘gammer’ (hence ‘old woman’)), a colloq. contraction of madonna, lady, mistress, literally ‘my lady,’ ‘madam’: see madam and madonna, of which monkey is thus ult. a contracted form, with an added suffix.
from monkey, n.

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