monkey

Meanings

Noun

• Any member of the clade Simiiformes not also of the clade Hominoidea containing humans and apes, from which they are usually, but not universally, distinguished by smaller size, a tail, and cheek pouches.
• Any nonhuman simian primate, including apes.
• A mischievous child.
• A dance move popular in the 1960s.
• Five hundred pounds sterling; five hundred dollars.
• A person or the role of the person on the sidecar platform of a motorcycle involved in sidecar racing.
• A person with minimal intelligence and/or an unattractive appearance
• A face card.
• A menial employee who does a repetitive job, as in code monkey, grease monkey, phone monkey, powder monkey.
• The weight or hammer of a pile driver; a heavy mass of iron, which, being raised high, falls on the head of the pile, and drives it into the earth; the falling weight of a drop hammer used in forging.
• A small trading vessel of the sixteenth century.
• A drug habit; an addiction; a compulsion.
• A fluid consisting of hydrochloric acid and zinc, used in the process of soldering.
• A person's temper, said to be "up" when they are angry.
• A black person.

Verb

• To meddle; to mess (with).
• To mimic; to ape.

Origin

• Uncertain. May be either derived from Middle English monk, or borrowed from Middle Low German Moneke, name of the son of Martin the Ape in Reynard the Fox (which may represent an unattested colloquial *moneke, which in turn is possibly a diminutive from Middle French monne, from Old Spanish mona, shortening of mamona, variant of maimón, from Arabic مَيْمُون ("baboon")). Compare Old French Monequin.