ape

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to represent in or produce a caricature of

   Everyone cracks up when I ape the way that you lecture us.

2. 2
   verb

   to imitate uncritically and in every aspect

   My younger siblings ape my behavior.

3. 3
   noun

   An anthropoid of the superfamily Hominoidea, generally larger than monkeys and distinguished from them by having no tail.

   Of vvhat texte thou proveſt hell / vvill a nother prove purgatory / a nother lymbo patrum / and a nother the aſſumpcion of oure ladi: And a nother ſhall prove of the ſame texte that an Ape hath a tayle.

4. 4
   verb

   To imitate or mimic, particularly to imitate poorly.

   And well their dignity it ſuits, / To ape the gravity of brutes.

5. 5
   adj

   Wild; crazy.

   We were ape over the new look.

6. 6
   noun

   Initialism of alkylphenol ethoxylate.

   The most important and commonly used APEs are nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), which account for 80% of the APE market.

7. 7
   noun

   any of various primates with short tails or no tail at all

8. 8
   noun

   person who resembles a nonhuman primate

Etymology

From Middle English ape, from Old English apa (“ape, monkey”), from Proto-West Germanic *apō, from Proto-Germanic *apô (“monkey, ape”), possibly derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep- (“water”), compare Proto-Celtic *abū (“river”) (hence English place name Avon, Irish abha, Welsh afon), if the word originally referred to a "water sprite". Traditionally assumed to be an ancient loanword instead, ultimately probably from an unidentified non-Indo-European language of regions in Africa or Asia where monkeys are native. Cognate with Scots aip (“ape”), West Frisian aap (“ape”), Dutch aap (“monkey,…