Ape

//eɪp// adj, noun, verb, slang

adj, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A primate 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."

  2. 2
    Initialism of alkylphenol ethoxylate. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism

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

  3. 3
    any of various primates with short tails or no tail at all wordnet
  4. 4
    Any such primate other than a human.
  5. 5
    person who resembles a nonhuman primate wordnet
Show 4 more definitions
  1. 6
    An unintelligent or unsophisticated person, especially one who behaves irrationally or in an uncivilised manner. derogatory
  2. 7
    someone who copies the words or behavior of another wordnet
  3. 8
    One who apes; a foolish imitator.
  4. 9
    A black person. ethnic, offensive, slur
Verb
  1. 1
    To behave like an ape. intransitive
  2. 2
    represent in or produce a caricature of wordnet
  3. 3
    To imitate or mimic, particularly to imitate poorly. transitive

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

  4. 4
    imitate uncritically and in every aspect wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Wild; crazy. not-comparable, slang

    "We were ape over the new look."

Synonyms

All synonyms
caricaturecopycatactact a partact asact out

Example

More examples

"The male ape is intelligent by nature."

Etymology

Etymology 1

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, ape”), Low German Ape (“ape”), German Affe (“monkey, ape”), Swedish apa (“monkey, ape”), Icelandic api (“ape”).

Etymology 2

Clipping of apeshit (“ape-shit (crazy)”).

Related phrases

Barbary ape)Bili apeGod's apeNorth American wood apeSteller's sea apeape hangerape inape leaderape shitape-baboonape-bearerape-fissure

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.