Monkey Meaning

/ˈmʌŋki/
A1

Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

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nounA member of the clade Simiiformes other than those in the clade Hominoidea containing apes, generally (but not universally) distinguished by small size, tails, and cheek pouches.

nounAny simian, including humans.

Hey, look, a three-headed monkey!
I'm not talking to you; I'm talking to the monkey.
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ quickly climbed the tall tree to get the ripe bananas.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The playful little ____ swung easily from branch to branch high in the jungle canopy while looking for some sweet ripe bananas to eat.

Uncertain: * May be derived from monk + -ey (diminutive suffix), * or borrowed from Middle Low German Moneke, the name of the son of Martin the Ape in Reynard the Fox (which may represent an unattested colloquial Middle Low German *moneke, *moneken), itself of uncertain origin: ** Possibly derived from a Romance term represented by Late Middle French monne (whence Modern French mone (“monkey”)) or earlier Old French monnekin (“monkey”), originally Monnekin, the name of a monkey in Li Dis d'Entendement. Compare also Old French and Middle French monin (“monkey”). *** The French terms may have been borrowed from Italian monna (“monkey”), from Old Spanish mona (“female monkey”), itself a shortening of mamona, variant of maimón, from Arabic مَيْمُون (maymūn, “baboon”)). *** However, Old French monnekin may alternatively be unrelated to the other terms, instead being a borrowing of Early Middle Dutch mannekin (a diminutive of man, literally “little human”), and if so monkey is a doublet of mannequin; see modern Dutch manneken.

"They thought of, I don’t know, monkeys and caipirinhas and samba.”" — 2007 September 20, Eric Wilson, “Blame It on Rio and Gisele”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 18 Sep 2020:
"Following monkeys, apes, and other creatures in their habitats, these scientists turned their notes and observations into voluminous, quantitative data. […] Other examples of nonhuman self-domestication in the wild exist—for instance, the Zanzibar red colobus monkey diverged from the mainland African red colobus in similar ways during its island isolation—but bonobos are the closest and most relevant to us." — 2019 January 29, Melvin Konner, “A Bold New Theory Proposes That Humans Tamed Themselves”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN, archived from the original on 09 Jul 2019:
""Yes. He gets to Paris at seven in the morning. He promised to telephone the first thing." "You expensive little monkey!" "Why?" "It's ten shillings for three minutes, or something like that, and you have to go to the G.P.O. or the Mansion House or some such place, I believe."" — 1909, Algernon Blackwood, You May Telephone From Here:
"Animalistic dehumanisation, 'simianisation' and the animalising of black bodies through metaphorically likening these individuals to 'baboons,' 'monkeys' or 'apes' reveals racialised animality discourse in South Africa." — 2022 October, René Cornish, Kieran Tranter, “Dismissals for Social Media Hate Speech in South Africa: Animalistic Dehumanisation and the Circulation of Racist Words and Images”, in Springer Nature Link:
"Someone handed me a monkey of grog. I forced myself to sip it, not down it." — 2007, Broos Campbell, No Quarter, page 111:

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CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ quickly climbed the tall tree to get the ripe bananas.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The playful little ____ swung easily from branch to branch high in the jungle canopy while looking for some sweet ripe bananas to eat.

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