monkey
n. countablen. a type of animal that is similar to an ape, has a long tail, and lives in hot countries. Monkeys are known for climbing trees and being playful.
n. a long-tailed primate, typically smaller than an ape, that lives in trees in tropical countries. The term broadly covers species from the infraorders Platyrrhini and Catarrhini.
A monkey eats a banana in the tree.
At the zoo, we watched the small monkeys swing from branch to branch.
The study observed how the alpha monkey in the troop asserted its dominance through a complex series of vocalisations and gestures.
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.