monkey shine n.
1. (US) tricks or antics.
 | Jim Crowe iii: I cut so many munky shines, I dance de gallopade [DA]. | |
| Trippings of Tom Pepper I 43: Let me catch him cutting up any monkey shines in this house, and I’ll bea[n] him! | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Dly Eve. Star (DC) 14 Jan. 1/3: How I cut up monkey shines / Every time his back was turned / How I sometimes used to catch it, / When I’d not my lesson learned. | |
| Holmes Co. (Millersburg, OH) 21 Mar. 3/2: Such a row [...] as has never been equalled sense Satan cut up his monkey shines in heaven. | |
| Night Side of N.Y. 118: They went in for more monkey-shines until the door should be unbarred. | |
| Otowa Free Trader (IL) 20 May n.p.: We are accused of cutting up monkey shines sometimes and not without cause. | |
| Ottowa Free-Trader (IL) 10 Mar. 1/2: It tickled him so much that he cut up a ‘monkey-shine’ or so, during which he hit his head. | |
| Lippincott’s Monthly Mag. (Phila.) Aug. ‘A Land of Love’ 231: Such monkey-shines! It proves that you have no serious interest in science [F&H]. | |
| Independent (Honolulu) 5 Oct. 1/2: And we played ‘ball’, no monkey shines / We dumped no friends for dollars or dimes. | |
| ‘Central Connecticut Word-List’ in DN III:i 7: cut up shines, v. phr. To play tricks. Also, ‘to cut up monkey-shines’. | |
| Shorty McCabe 62: [...] when we made that quick move away from that punky old palace after our little monkey shine with the brigands. | |
| Imperial Valley Press (El Centro, CA) 20 Aug. 4/2: They profess to have seen dead people come back from the grace to cavort [...] and cut up monkey shines. | |
| From Coast to Coast with Jack London 72: Don’t dare make any further monkeyshines! | |
| Seattle Star (WA) 20 July 11/2: He watched Flitter cutting up mopnkey-shines. | |
| (con. 1900s) Elmer Gantry 208: Oh, I’m not going on with this evangelistic bunk. Trapping idiots into monkey-shines. | |
| Black Manhattan 64: After a good play the whole team would for a moment cut monkey-shines that would make the grand stand and bleachers roar. | |
| Mildred Pierce (1985) 445: I don’t know what made me think you could, unless it was that idiotic monkeyshine you pulled in the Rachmaninoff. | |
| Go, Man, Go! 115: You got no ideas about this monkey-shines? | |
| Burn, Killer, Burn! 129: Coo the monkeyshines. | |
| After Hours 189: You pay him back by using his office as a screen for your monkeyshines. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | When Me Was A Boy 43: A Little Monkeyshines. | |
| Savage Art 442: The Transgressors [...] warranted neither such editorial involutions nor Thompson’s monkeyshines with Loeff. | |
| Die a Little (2008) 199: He sent another of my girls to the hospital after a night of monkeyshines. |
2. attrib. use of sense 1.
| Morning Courier and N.-Y. Enquirer 17 Sept. 1/6: [The plaintiff said] skylarking meant cutting monkey-shine capers. |