Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see monkey suit n. (2)

(drugs) free samples of addictive drugs.

1959

J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.

a sheep-station hand; thus monkey-dodging, mustering sheep.

1899		Brisbane Courier (Qld) 24 Nov. 7/7: Men employed to muster the sheep in pens are ‘musterers’ and ‘monkey-dodgers’.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Oct. 16/2: ‘Monkey-dodging,’ as slang for mustering sheep, is seldom heard nowadays; it is said to have had its origin in the fact that the aborigines in the early days never called a sheep anything but a monkey – though what the aborigine knew about monkeys it is hard to say.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Aug. 26/4: The cattle drover – employer and employee – despises the ‘monkey-dodger,’ as he calls the sheep-tailer. I saw a rattling good fight between two cattle-drovers, all because, as one of their mates said, ‘the cow has been drinking with a sheep-drover.’.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 66: Some more popular terms for sheep: woolly and monkey (a shepherd is known as a monkey dodger).

(drugs) a hypodermic syringe.

1959

J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.

1. phencyclidine.

1979		H. Feldman et al. Angel Dust 124: The large number of street names it has been accorded over the years: [...] monkey dust [...] ‘Monkey dust’ is a brown powder containing PCP tetracaine and lactose.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 15: Monkey dust — PCP.

2. morphine.

2003

‘Worksheet 9: Self study of drug abuse’ St Alban’s College 🌐 Opiates [...] morphine (M, morph, Miss Emma, monkey dust, etc.).

1. (US) a psychiatric institution.

1907		Frederick Daily News (MD) 2 Nov. n.p.: ‘I have been watching you, you miserable woman,’ shouted the excited specialist. ‘It is women like you who drive men to the monkey house.’.
1961		(con. early 1950s) J. Peacock Valhalla 447: Maybe somebody go to Monkey House.

2. (US drugs) an opium den.

1959

J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.

(drugs) the staggering and twitching of one who is addicted to narcotics.

1959

J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.

semen.

2000

M. Manning Get Your Cock Out 107: The beaner and Strutter were also wanking furiously, covering the chicks down the front in a great shower of monkey-juice.

1. (US black) a weak man, usu. one dominated by his wife or girlfriend.

1924		Ida Cox ‘Chicago Monkey Man Blues’ 🎵 I’ve got a monkey man here, a monkey man over there / I’ve got a monkey man here, a monkey man over there / If monkey men were money, I’d be a Chicago millionaire.
1928		Charlie Jackson & Ma Rainey ‘Big Feeling Blues’ 🎵 All these many years I’ve been pleadin’ for a man / How come I can’t get me a real monkey man.
1928		R. Fisher Walls Of Jericho 302: monkey-man ‘Cake-eater’.
1929		(con. WWI) H. Odum Wings on My Feet 157: I walks round tellin’ her to get her a monkey man an’ make him strut his stuff.
1937		Robert Johnson ‘I’m A Steady Rollin’ Man’ 🎵 You can’t give your sweet woman, everything she wants in one time / ooh hoo ooo, you can’t give your sweet woman, everything she wants in one time / Well, boys, she get ramblin’ in her brain, hmm mmm mmm, some monkey man on her mind.

2. (US black) rarely, a West Indian immigrant.

1959

P. Oliver Meaning of the Blues 50: The ‘monkey men’ of the West indies.

3. (N.Z.) one who provides a mortgage [note Ware (1909): ‘Monkey on the house (Soc.). Expression current in Cambridgeshire. It means that the owner of the house has raised money on it. The natives also say, “A monkey on the land”, the word “monkey” being exactly equivalent to “mortgage”’].

1953		Fairburn in Bailey & Roth Shanties (1967) 158: The good times are over. The monkey-man has foreclosed [DNZE].
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 136: monkey man Bank manager who provides your mortgage and represents the monkey on your back. Mid C20.

4. (W.I.) a large, unintelligent man.

1980

M. Thelwell Harder They Come 190: Monkey man [...] Is mus’ be him in the song ‘hugging up a big monkey man’.

5. see sense 4b above.

(US drugs) .

1970

G. Cain Blueschild Baby 26: ‘When they stretch me out and see the monkey marks on my arm it will go no further, just another dead junky good riddance’.

1. (orig. US milit.) canned corned beef.

1916		F.H. Gailor Gailor ‘An American Ambulance in the Verdun Attack’ in Cornhill Mag. July 54: We lunched together on the front seat of the camion on bread, tinned ‘monkey meat,’ and red wine .
1918		letter in K.F. Cowing Dear Folks at Home (1919) 148: Our ‘chow’ [...] consisted of bread and ‘monkey’ meat, as we call some canned meat that comes from Argentine.
1926		(con. 1918) J.W. Thomason Fix Bayonets! 200: I don’t like monkey-meat.
1931		I. Franklyn Knights of the Cockpit 137: ‘Monkey meat – ? My heavens, you don’t mean to say, they give you poor boys monkey meat to eat?’ ‘Not exactly – ! You see, we call Canned Beef by that name.’.
1946		J.W. Bishop ‘American Army Speech’ in AS XXI:4 Dec. 244: Even the odious C and K rations are either given their full titles or referred to as C’s and K’s. I heard little approximating the goldfish and monkeymeat of the last war.

2. (drugs) a heavily intoxicated drug user.

1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
1975		Hardy & Cull Drug Lang. and Lore.

(drugs) morphine.

1959

J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.

(N.Z. prison) a member of the biker and prison gang the Mongrel Mob.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 118/2: monkey mob, the n. the Mongrel Mob.

(US black) one who talks nonsense, empty phrases.

2022

J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 16: She felt like some kind of monkey-mouth, even before she’d shut her trap.

(US) West Indian rum.

1941

J. Daniels Tar Heels 255: Corn liquor and monkey rum (which in North Carolina was the distilled sirup of sorghum cane), were concoctions taken stoically with retching and running eyes, for the effect beyond the first fusel oil belch [DA].

the penis.

2000

M. Manning Get Your Cock Out 60: Battering all might hell out of their monkey spanners in appreciation of a lady’s charms.

used of various urban walks popular with local young people in such London suburbs as Wanstead, Wimbledon, etc. and cities such as Manchester and Dundee but primarily a popular promenade in the East End of London, Bow Road running from the junction of Mile End Road (Whitechapel) and Grove Road (the Monkey’s Parade was also the name of a street gang).

1879		London Life 14 June 3/2: walks abroad, on monkey's parade, the rotten row of the east [...] At this point commences the fashionable promenade known to ‘eastenders’ as ‘Monkey’s Parade,’ or ‘Chickabiddy’s Walk’.
1888		Flintshire Obs. 8 Mar. n.p.: scenes in east london [...] Bow-road, which is one of the principal thoroughfares in the East-end, has for some time past been invaded by a ‘respectable’ class of roughs [...] and in consequence the road is now known as the Monkey's Parade.
1912		T. Holmes London’s Underworld cap. 10: How foolish, yet how pitiable their conduct is; you will see that they walk for about two hundred yards and then walk back again, and then repeat the same walk [...] up and down the ‘monkey's parade’.
2007		(ref. to late 19C) Time 10 May [internet] In England's inner cities, where there were regular pitched battles between gangs — Birmingham's Peaky Blinders, Liverpool's High Rip or the Monkey's Parade from London's East End — the look was edgier.

the scarred veins that are the product of and indicate heroin addiction.

1960

C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 9: You want some stuff so bad the veins are poppin [...] in your monkey tracks.

(US) an estate car, a ‘family’ car.

1989

(con. 1968) P. Theroux My Secret Hist. (1990) 298: Did they have one of those depressing houses, and a monkey wagon in the driveway?

(US) the major mail-order company Montgomery Ward.

1901		Harrisburg Dly (PA) 14 Aug. 4/4: On a shelf is a catalogue of ‘Monkey Ward & Company,’ the big suppl house of Chicago.
1911		Phillips Co. Post (Phillipsburg, KS)16 Mar. 1: [advert] monkey ward / A Real Comparison of Prices makes Him Squirm / Montgomery Ward & Co. it’s up to you to take your Medicine.
1967		‘Philip Barrows’ Whores, Queers & Others I [ebook] Al had a Monkey Ward catalog in his room and one of the girls modeling a night gown looked a lot like Gloria.

(US) trickery, mischief.

1898		McClure’s Mag. X 541/2: Mind you, any monkey work’ll get you into more trouble [DA].
1933		(con. late19C) F. Riesenberg Log of the Sea 57: ‘No monkey work, now,’ Gus warned.
1939		‘Flann O’Brien’ At Swim-Two-Birds 78: Tell us to get on our feet and no delay or monkey-work.
c.1940–5		‘Myles na gCopaleen’ Best of Myles (1968) 32: Be quick or you’re for it. No monkey work!
1940		‘Flann O’Brien’ Third Policeman (1974) 162: You thought there was magic in it, not to mention monkey-work of no mean order.

1. (drugs, also scratch one’s/the monkey) to maintain one’s addiction to narcotics.

1953		W. Brown Monkey On My Back (1954) 226: The pushing they were doing did not bring in enough to feed two monkeys.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 325: Gotta feed the monkey before he eats your bahakas up raw.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 72: Scratch Your Monkey also Feed Your Monkey The daily ‘shooting’ of drugs to satisfy a person’s habit.

2. (US gay, also feed someone’s monkey) to have sexual intercourse with a woman.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 80: feed somebody’s monkey (fr sl monkey = vulva) to go to bed with a woman.

to lose one’s temper, to get into a bad temper; thus my monkey’s up, I am very annoyed.

1838		‘Paul Pry’ Oddities of London Life I 90: Young master’s ‘monkey’ vos up at that, and he said he’d be blowed if he’d sit on the same board vith a charity brat.
1841		‘F.L.G.’ Swell’s Night Guide K3: Monkey Up Violent Passion.
1852		Bell’s Life in Sydney 28 Feb. 3/2: Mrs Wright’s monkey was up and she went at me dreadful.
1858		R.S. Surtees Ask Mamma 348: Monsieur’s monkey, however, was now up.
1866		Wild Boys of London I 261/1: Sam was angry; to use his own expression, ‘his monkey was up’.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 229: My monkey was up, and I felt savage.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 60: The mare, like some women when they get their monkey up, was clean out of her senses.
1896		G.M. Fenn Sappers and Miners 123: Of course, a chap gets his monkey up a bit when it comes to a fight.
1900		B. Mitford Aletta 238: You know what a violent beggar he is when his monkey is up.
1900		N.Y. Tribune 9 Dec. 5/1: [She] looks as if she could give you what for if she got her monkey up.
1901		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ In Bad Company 17: Paddy’s got his monkey up, and it’ll be bloody wars if you don’t clear.
1909		N.Z. Truth 30 Jan. 5/6: At this threat John the Jehu got his monkey up.

to annoy someone, to infuriate someone.

1849		A. Harris Emigrant Family I 212: Don’ be jerran (afraid) man. Only you chaff him and you’ll have his monkey up in a minute.
1849		Bell’s Life in Sydney 7 July 3/1: When you gets a cabman's monkey up, yer Wertchip knows vot the natteral consekence is - vy, he [...] vips off like vinkin .
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 63: MONKEY, spirit, or temper. ‘to get one’s monkey up,’ to rouse their passion.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1859].
1865		‘Mr Carlisle’ Stray Leaves 141: This [comment] put the man's monkey up, and away he went.
1927		(con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 9: I was at the ropes watching you mill into him, Bendy [...] and you did it well enough when he got your monkey up.

to have feelings of irritation.

1916

T. Burke Limehouse Nights 63: I should think ’e would get the monkeys. Anyone’d git the monkeys wiv you talkin’ to ’em like that. Got no tack, you ain’t.

to annoy, to distress.

1932

F. Jennings Tramping with Tramps 144: I’m fair fed up [...] One of my busiest days, too, and I’m already working one girl short. Fair gives you the monkeys, don’t it?

to end an addiction to narcotics.

1995

J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 326: That’s the oneliest way you gonna kill the monkey.

see separate entry.

see monkey on one’s back n. (2)

of a shopkeeper, e.g. a grocer, defrauding customers by affixing some form of hidden weight to one’s scales, thus giving short weight.

1832		Times 21 Dec. 4/4: The defendant had a two ounce weight affixed to the bottom of his scales, and suspended by a wire through the counter. This mode of defrauding the poor is called by the trade ‘riding the monkey’.
1834		Independent (Launceston, Tas.) 11 Jan. 3/1: The law will operate unkindly, only upon that class of tradesmen, who, not having the fear of God before their, eyes, nor the welfare of the People, are not delicate in ‘Riding the Monkey,’ and so on.
1853		Lloyd’s Wkly Newspaper 15 May 8/5: The complainant is a tradesman, who has several times been fined for cheating the poor, by ‘riding the monkey’ and other devices for giving false weights.

see feed one’s/the monkey

to masturbate.

1997

Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: slap the monkey See bash the bishop.

see under suck v.¹

(US) a euph. for damned adj.

1979		(con. 1949) J. Hurling Boomers 152: How the hell are you going to swing a maul — with your monkey-ass tail?
1989		(con. 1968) W.E. Merritt Where the Rivers Ran Backward 218: Shee-it. We be sending those mofo cameras and those monkey-assed earphones.
2002		J. Nikolai ‘More Lame than L.A.M.F.’ PUNK Mag. 🌐 This little monkey-assed putz acted as though he were the star attraction.

(US black) a man who dresses in formal dinner wear, a dude.

1928

R. Fisher Walls Of Jericho 147: Know where I seen ’im goin’ to-night, dressed up like a monkey-back?

(US) a love-bite.

1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U.

see horse blanket under horse n.

the step on a bus on which the conductor stands.

1851		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 13 Apr. 4/4: I spose [they were] spekulatin aboute a new line of Lion Busses (shoodnt I like to see Harry on ther monkey boarde; he’d make a oute-and-out konductor, he kan holler so well) .
1860		Punch XXXVIII 186: I was on the monkey-board behind.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1876		J. Greenwood Low-Life Deeps 162: He [...] glanced wearily over his shoulder in the direction of the monkey-board.
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 23: The ill-paid and hard-worked drudges of the monkey-board [...] ’bus conductors are systematically victimised.

see separate entry.

(Can./US Und.) a prison cell.

1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 126: In the pokey [...] he is fit in (booked, mugged and sprayed with lice repellent) before thrown into a cell [bird (monkey) cage].
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 301: Suddenly, I quit pacing the monkey cage.

1. (US) a man who frequents taxi-dances [sense 2e].

1912		Princeton Union (MN) 25 Apr. 4/1: ‘Mother’ Jones [...] characterized Theodore Roosevelt as a ‘hot-air monkey chaser’.
1932		P.G. Cressey Taxi-Dance Hall 35: Monkeys. Dancing girls, either chorus girls or taxi-dancers [...] Monkey-chaser – A man interested in a taxi-dancer or chorus girl [...] Monkey shows. – Burlesque shows having chorus girls.

2. (US black) a West Indian.

1925		Atlantic Monthly Feb. 182/1: I’ll be john-browned if there’s a monkey-chaser in Harlem can gyp him.
1931		N. Van Patten ‘Vocab. of the Amer. Negro’ in AS VII:1 29: monkey-chaser. M. n. Negro from the British West Indies.
1942		Z.N. Hurston Dust Tracks On a Road (1995) 806: Two or three of the singers talked in stage whispers about ‘monkey chasers dancing.’ [...] The American Negroes have an unfortunate habit of speaking of West Indians as ‘monkey-chasers,’ pretending to believe that the West Indians catch monkeys and stew them with rice.
1960		(con. 1940s) I. Freeman Out of the Burning (1961) 15: My family on both sides came from Trinidad. The Yankee Negroes called us monkey-chasers.
1983		I.L. Allen Lang. of Ethnic Conflict 49: monkey-chaser [1920s. Originally a West Indian].
1994		P. Baker Blood Posse 102: Boat people. What’d you expect [...] Monkey chasers.

3. (US) a cocktail composed of gin and ice, with a little sugar and a trace of water.

1952

New Yorker 30 Aug. 15/3: Monkey chasers are gin and ice, with a little sugar and a trace of water. That term ‘monkey chaser’ comes from Georgia [OED].

1. (US) men’s dress or evening wear.

1904		DN II 399: Monkey clothes...Dress clothes, evening clothes.
1926		R.P. Bond ‘Animal Comparisons’ in AS II:1 50: Monkey clothes — ‘Dress clothes’.
1936		in R.E. Howard ‘Cultured Cauliflowers’ in Gruber Boxing Stories (2005) 120: You done got me into these monkey clothes .

2. (US Und.) uniform or plain clothes, as worn by policemen.

1929		Hostetter & Beesley It’s a Racket! 232: monkey clothes — In plain clothes; out of uniform; said of detectives or police.
1931–4		D. Clemmer Prison Community (1940) 334/1: monkey clothes, n. A policeman’s uniform.

1. a frankfurter sausage.

1965		in IUFA Folk Speech n.p.: Army Terms: Monkey dicks (Hot dogs) [HDAS].
1984		Elting, Cragg & Deal Dict. of Soldier Talk 363: Monkey dicks (Generally World War II; Marines)...Vienna sausage.

2. a contemptible person.

1988

Cogan & Ferguson Presidio 86: He’s a monkey dick [HDAS].

see monkey business n.

(drugs) a designer drug of the cathinone group; a a stimulant, it interferes with dopamine and noradrenaline reuptakes; it allegedly produced psychotic reactions (hallucinations and paranoia) in its user .

2018		Independent 11 Aug. 🌐 Police officers in the West Midlands are warning of a “public health crisis” over a new synthetic drug known as monkey dust that can be bought for as little as £2 [...] MDPV has already gained notoriety in America, where it was known as ‘bath salts’. Fears around the drug were sparked by a number of reported ‘cannibalism incidents’.
2018		Times 11 Aug. 🌐 Also known as Zombie Dust, Cannibal Dust and bath salts, the drug stops users feeling pain and causes hallucinations, agitation and severe paranoia.

see separate entry.

(W.I.) utter rubbish, absolute nonsense.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

(orig. Can.) playing around, ‘messing about’, wasting time.

1988		(con. 1966) D.A. Willson REMF 40: Just a bunch of monkey-farting around and nonsense [HDAS].
2003		Austin ‘Blue Water Blending’ University in Duluth, Minn. 🌐 This my mom, she works at a local grocery store. When she’s not working, she’s busy, as she says ‘monkey farting’ in her gardens.

to light one cigarette from the tip of another.

1997–2001

Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 monkey fuck v 1. to light a cigarette using a lit cigarette instead of a lighter. (‘I lost my matches, so I had to monkey fuck my cigarette.’).

see apehangers under ape n.

(US) a hat worn by someone preparing food, as in a sandwich bar.

1954

J.D. MacDonald All These Condemned (2001) 182: You’ll find a nice clean counter and get behind it and put on a monkey hat and start making with the cheese on rye.

see monkey show

(W.I.) a sweetmeat made of coconut boiled with sugar.

1943

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

1. a short, close-fitting jacket, worn by either sex.

1795		Sporting Mag. May VI 93/2: It is very well known, that the little great coats, or Spencers, as they are called by the men, have, with the women, the appellation of Monkeys.
1841		F.A. Olmsted Incidents of a Whaling Voyage 104: There are two kinds, the baboon jacket, a short coat without any skirts, and the monkey jacket, differing from the other in having a kind of ruffle around the lower edge answering to skirts.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 11 Mar. 3/2: Also, will be Sold [...] An old Cabbage Tree Hat and Monkey jacket.
1848		‘Percival Plug’ Biscuits & Grog 10: I out my hands in the pocket of my monkey-jacket.
1856		G.G. Foster N.Y. by Gas-Light (1990) 176: The newest invention in the costume of the g’hal is a fascinating article of outside gear, termed by some a ‘polka,’ but generally known as a ‘monkey-jacket’.
1877		Gloucester Citizen 27 Nov. 4/3: [advert] New Material and Style in [...] Monkey Jackets.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Aug. 14/2: The struggle of the recipients to fix these [flowers] into a monkey-jacket button-hole a foot long, and the final deposit of them in the side pocket, alongside a fig of black tobacco, was also a cheery spectacle.
1887		G. Davis Recoll. Sea-Wanderer 307: Seeing her filling rapidly, I ordered the crew to take off their monkey-jackets, and, rolling them into a big wad, stopped the leak.
1893		H. Lawson ‘Brummy Usen’ in Roderick (1972) 77: The bushranger was [...] buried again in his dust and blood stains and monkey-jacket.
1896		‘Frederick Benton Williams’ (H.E. Hamblen) On Many Seas 82: I’ll go aft after breakfast and buy a couple of pairs of stockings and a monkey jacket from him.
1916		‘Taffrail’ Pincher Martin 243: All wore ‘monkey-jackets’ – the ordinary eight-buttoned reefer coats.
1928		H. Brackbill ‘Midshipman Jargon’ in AS III:6 453: Monkey jacket — Full dress blouse.
1932		M. Marshall Travels of Tramp-Royal 32: A swanky man in a kilt, monkey-jacket and blue bonnet.
1936		(con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 824: The bellhops in monkeyjackets and the over-dressed old hens sitting in the lobby.
1941		C.R. Bond 26 Oct. in A Flying Tiger’s Diary (1984) 32: I dressed in our formal military ‘monkey jacket’ outfits.

2. (Aus.) a topcoat.

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Feb. 18/3: Und my mate he vas a-speening it oop in the pooblic-howse; und I say, [...] ‘Vy you no puy a moonkey yacket? Ven you geds ouderside, und de nor’vester he blow, you vill den cry oudt, “Vy did not I puy a moonkey yacket?”’.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 5 June 1/5: ‘The chances are he’as got a life pertecter under that monkey jacket’ [...] I made out the glimmer of our broker’s topcoat.

3. a dinner jacket.

1947		J. Symons Man Called Jones (1949) 10: He was wearing a dinner-jacket. ‘I could do without it myself, and without these damned monkey jackets too.’.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 17: He wore a food-stained chest-high apron under a red monkey jacket.

(W.I.) a very ugly person.

1943

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

(Aus.) a form of beard typically worn by puritans and evangelicals; thus monkey-shaven adj.

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Mar. 13/1: There is one thing to be said for the war, anyhow – it has killed the Kruger shave in Melbourne. The monkey lip is now regarded as the trade-mark of the factious disloyalist. A prominent ecclesiastic is the only man who holds out.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Aug. 11/1: If any more denominations secede from the scheme, there will presently only remain a couple of monkey-shaven individuals grappling with their futile fad, and even they will likely quarrel over the final paragraphs of the report.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Sept. 12/2: The Wesleyan monkey shaveBomb is a trade-mark. So is the Presbyterian grizzled beard.

(W.I.) acid that is thrown on someone resulting in burns and disfiguration.

1995

Francis-Jackson Official Dancehall Dict. 34: Monkey lotion acid, thrown on someone so as to cause burning and disfiguration.

1. (US) any foreign currency.

1931

Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 131: Monkey Money.- [...] Any foreign currency, generally below the par of United States gold, and so considered as of small account.

2. (US tramp) tokens issued instead of cash to be used in a specific shop.

1931

Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 131: Monkey Money. – Script or tokens issued in lieu of cash for use in a company store or commissary.

3. (UK Und.) counterfeit coins.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

4. (W.I.) a small, insignificant sum of money.

1995

Francis-Jackson Official Dancehall Dict. 34: Monkey-money a small sum thought to be of no real value: u. me nuh have nuh use fi monkey-money.

(US drugs) a given measure of crack cocaine.

1992

UGK ‘Pocket Full of Stones’ 🎵 Cause they knew I cut them twentys and them big fat monkey nuts.

1. (US prison) prison-cooked meatballs.

1992

Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 67: Monkey Nuts Meat balls.

2. a very small amount.

2005

T. Hall Salaam Brick Lane 3: The rate was one hundred pounds a week – ‘It’s monkey nuts, innit.’.

the evening promenade up and down a main thoroughfare by (Cockney) young people in search of flirtation.

1903		(ref. to 1870s) Eve. Post 26 Nov. 6/3: We find the Monkey’s Parade flourishing remarkably in the early seventies when the beauties of Bow and Poplar, all tricked out in their Sunday best, footed it bravely along the echoing pavement and back again till supper time.
1903		Dundee Eve. Post 26 Nov. 6: They all dodge the Jet Autem, and sneak down the slade, / To appear arm-in-arm at the Monkey’s Parade.
1911		G.R. Sims Off the Track in London 104: Mare Street is famous for its ‘Monkeys’ Parade.’ On Sunday evening it is packed from end to end with promenaders.
1912		E. Pugh Harry The Cockney 149: Our favourite haunts were the various Monkey Parades of North London, particularly Kentish Town Road and Upper Street, Islington. [...] Our usual beat was from the undertaker’s shop at the corner of Prince of Wales’ Road to the other undertaker’s shop at the corner of Fortess Road.
2108		(con. 1950s) M. McGrath Pie & Mash 170: Saturday night is dance night [...] The monkey parade, they call it, the girls lined up along one wall waiting to be asked to dance, the boys ranged along the other working up the courage to ask them.

(US) weak beer or bad wine.

1975		N. De Mille Smack Man (1991) 97: Bring us three mugs of that monkey piss you call beer.
1997		J. Birmingham Tasmanian Babes Fiasco (1998) 209: ‘He’s brought [...] two big boxes of wine.’ ‘Monkey piss?’.

(Aus. prison) to light one cigarette from the tip of another.

1990

Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Monkey root. Passing a lighted cigarette around a group to light other cigarettes where matches are lacking.

see also separate entries.

a minimum of payment and a maximum of harsh treatment, usu. ‘translated’ as ‘more kicks than halfpence’.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Monkey’s allowance, more kicks than halfpence.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 107: They had given them monkey’s allowance, more kick’s than cents.
1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 10: When you get on board you’ll find monkey’s allowance – more kicks than half-pence.
1841		Western Times 3 July 3/3: A struggle took place [...] in consequence of the vociferous conduct of one of the Tories [who] was passed from one to the other with the ‘monkey’s allowance of more cuffs than ha’pence’.
1851		Bell’s Life in Sydney 24 May 2/7: His answer was monkey’s allowance — a kick and a blow.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 103: It is not an unfrequent occurence for the sport-loving gent to give the young monkey that peculiar allowance known as ‘more kicks than halfpence’.
1861		John O’Groat Jrnl 25 Apr. 2/2: The women do all of the work and get none of the pay — in fact we are put on monkeys allowance: more kicks than half-pence.
1871		Cheltenham Chron. 23 May 4/4: Time was in the past, when they had monkeys allowance, more kicks than halfpence: now we live in better times.
c.1880		‘Gladstone! The Man of the People’ [broadsheet ballad] Monkeys allowance we seem to have got / No halfpence but plenty of kicks.
1889		Northampton Mercury 19 Oct. 9/2: I know your partnership affairs of old. Monkey’s allowance; me all the kicks, you all the ha’pence.
[1889		Music Hall & Theatre Rev 20 July 5/2: Ted Colley had more work than halfpence over the Feeney Fund. [...] He tried hard to make a big collection, but the responses were not what might have been expected].
1898		A.J. Boyd Shellback 369: The only effects are to make the skipper’s temper unbearable [...] and to procure for the boys what is known as ‘monkey’s allowance’ – more kicks that halfpence.

see monkey business n.

see monkey-lip

see separate entries.

see monkey fart

1. derog., a public meeting.

1832

Spirit of the Times (NY) 14 Apr. 2/2: McKenzie attempted to get up another monkey show [...] but the rotten eggs, we hear, flew in such showers [...] that he had to fly in disgrace.

2. (also monkey hop) a taxi-dance or burlesque show [monkey suit n.].

1932

P.G. Cressey Taxi-Dance Hall 17: Monkey shows. – Burlesque shows having chorus girls [...] The first efforts of its clientele to provide a satisfactory name for the taxi-dance hall resulted in such descriptive phrases as ‘dime-a-dance-halls,’ ‘stag dance,’ and ‘monkey hops’.

see monkey parade

(orig. naut.) a short crowbar.

1834

Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 30: ‘Youngster, hand me that monkey’s tail.’ I saw nothing like a monkey’s tail but I was so frightened that I snatched up the first thing that I saw which was a very short bar of iron.

a malacca cane, as used by a dandy.

1949

R. Chandler Little Sister 118: An apparently sane man could walk up and down [...] with a Piccadilly stroll and a monkey stick in his hand.

see separate entry.

(S.Afr.) a situation of simultaneous sunshine and rain [fig. use of monkey’s wedding (breakfast), a presumably chaotic occasion (used as such in parts of US), ? ult. synon. Port. casamento de rapôsa, a vixen’s wedding].

1949		Cape Times 29 Nov. 16: The Peninsula had a ‘monkey’s wedding’ rainfall yesterday with the sun shining at intervals and rain falling intermittently [DSAE].
1953		D. Rooke S.Afr. Twins 101: The clouds shifted and the sun peeped out. A fine silver rain still falling. ‘It’s a Monkey’s Wedding,’ cried Tiensie.
1974		N&Q 123: In Sussex, when sunshine and rain come together, it is known as a ‘monkey’s wedding’.
1989		J. Hobbs Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary 423: Monkey’s wedding: simultaneous rain and sunshine.
2003		Guardian G2 29 Jan. 7: Do we have a word for [...] what you call it when it rains and the sun shines, at the same time (a ‘monkey’s wedding,’ in some parts).

(Aus.) a racetrack attraction whereby an ‘educated’ monkey draws sweeps on the days's races.

1880		S.A. Advertiser (Adelaide) 28 Dec. 7/3: The holiday folk outside seemed to enjoy themselves in their own particular way, the thilling ‘monkey sweeps’ doing a roaring trade, and creating much amusement.
1881		Express & Teleg. (Adelaide) 6 May 3/6: The usual fun of the fair was extensively carried on outside the reserves. Educated monkeys drawing sweeps on the [Melbourne] Cup and other races, games of skill delighting in euphonious names such as ‘Chuck Cheese,’ ‘Doodl-’em buck,’ and other similar denominations.
1887		Bendigo Advertiser (Vic.) 9 Sept. 4/2: Herrara, who is better known by the soubriquet of ‘Nosey Tom’ was a man of about 35, and gained his living by getting up monkey sweeps.
1937		C. Drew ‘The Chameleon’ in Bulletin 3 Novt. 4/1: [T]here was some sharpshooters on the flat. There was blokes who ran blackboard totes, monkey-sweep men, tip-sellers, under-and-over merchants, three-board artists and Yankee-sweat men, all combined in a frontal attack on the geese with the golden eggs.

US cheap liquor, strong liquor, manufactured during US Prohibition.

1931

A. Hardin ‘Volstead English’ in AS VII:2 87: Terms used for intoxicating liquor: Monkey swill.

(S.Afr.) an especially gaudy tie.

1946

cited in Partridge DU (1949).

see separate entry.

behaving in an eccentric, bizarre manner.

1901		Baroness Orczy ‘The Regent’s Park Murder’ Old Man in the Corner 🌐 ‘Pardon me,’ he said, jumping up in his seat like a monkey on a stick, ‘there were not two men talking outside the Square gates.’.
1944		‘George Orwell’ ‘As I Please’ Trib. (London) 7 Jan. 🌐 I saw in Picture Post some ‘stills’ of Beaverbrook delivering a speech and looking more like a monkey on a stick than you would think possible for anyone who was not doing it on purpose.
1999		Gambling Forum Archive Jun. Digest 🌐 Plus he only plays in weak games. Once the game gets tough he runs like a monkey on a stick.

impudent, cheeky, self-satisfied.

1864, 1867, 1870

Hotten Sl. Dict.

1. (orig. US) to make a fool of, to make someone look stupid.

1895		Courier (Lincoln, NE) 10 Aug. 10/1: Kim tried to make a monkey out of Roach but it didn’t work.
1896		H. Blossom Checkers 177: When Mr. Barlow heard of it, ‘he made a monkey of himself.’ [...] He ranted and swore [etc.].
1901		C.R. Wooldridge Hands Up! 68: If you had adopted for yourself the motto, ‘Nothing ventured, nothing lost,’ you wouldn’t have made a monkey out of yourself.
1914		R. Lardner You Know Me Al (1984) 61: We made a monkey out of Dubuque, or whatever his name is.
1923		H.C. Witwer Fighting Blood 105: I could of went up to Yale and made a monkey out of the entire college!
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 63: He got sore because Helen could make such a monkey out of him.
1943		R. Chandler Lady in the Lake (1952) 234: I can’t let you make a monkey out of me in my own territory.
1950		K. Amis letter 1 Jan. in Leader (2000) 226: The documents are now proved to have been forged for a hoax to fool people and make monkeys of them.
1961		G. Marx letter 7 Feb. in Groucho Letters (1967) 224: You would have heard from me before now if I hadn’t been making monkeys out of Shakespeare and Shaw.
1973		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 2: make a monkey out of – to make someone appear foolish.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 170: Having made a monkey out of her lamebrain interviewer.
1999		Observer 3 Oct. 25: Anti-Darwinism makes a monkey out of Kansas.
2000		Indep. 4 May 5: She’s made a monkey out of the French system.

2. to destroy a theory.

1957

‘Ed Lacy’ Lead With Your Left (1958) 67: That made a monkey out of the robbery theory in Owens’ murder.

(US) an unhappy marriage, in which the two partners fight continually.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

a cyclist.

1911

J.W. Horsley Memoirs of a ‘Sky Pilot’ 254: The plainly modern ‘monkey on a gridiron’ for cyclist, [...] and perhaps ‘churcher’ for a threepenny bit appealed to me as a cleric.

(US campus) a course in anthropology.

1982

W. Safire What’s The Good Word? 300: More recent examples [of nicknames for courses] are astronomy’s ‘Stars for Studs,’ art’s ‘Nudes for Dudes,’ psychology’s ‘Nuts and Sluts,’ European civilization’s ‘Plato to NATO,’ anthropology’s ‘Monkeys to Junkies,’ and comparative religion’s ‘Gods for Clods’.

see not for all the tea in China under tea n.

1. to play the fool.

1903

Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Dec. 15/1: Thare is grate risk in playing the monkey. It is possible for the monkey to be a very philosophikal cuss, but 2-thirds ov the world will keep both eyes on the monkey all the time, and lose sight of the philosophy.

2. to malfunction.

1948

L.T.C. Rolt Sleep No More (1994) 3: It was while we were talking to Harry [...] that the bell wire started to play the monkey.

(US campus) phr. indicating the speaker's disinterest .

2014

C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014 Fall 4: NOT MY MONKEY, NOT MY CIRCUS — none of my business: X: ‘Alex is cheating on his girlfriend’ Y: ‘Not my monkey, not my circus’ .

to claim knowledge one does not possess.

1827

Bombay Gaz. 12 Dec. append. 10/4: [W]ill he deny he does not shampoo the monkey ? —will he deny he does not know what Blue ruin is?

(orig. US) to obstruct something deliberately, to go out of one’s way to wreck a plan or project; thus monkey-wrenching, this form of industrial sabotage, esp. performed by ecologists; monkey-wrencher, one who does this.

1910		N.Y. Times 3 Apr. SM5: All the Congressmen realize that these Exchanges are necessary for the business of the country, and I know there is not a man in the House but would hesitate to throw the monkey wrench into these great machines – machines that have taken forty or fifty years to build. But one of these fine days some one is going to throw that monkey wrench, for these Exchanges become mere gambling machines.
1927		(con. 1900s) S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 48: He would knock the block off any sneering, sneaking, lying, beer-bloated bully who should dare [...] try to throw a monkey-wrench into the machinery.
1929		Allighan Romance of Talkies 38: The Talkies threw several kinds of monkey wrenches into the machinery of production [DA].
1938		E.S. Gardner ‘Leg Man’ in Ruhm Hard-Boiled Detective (1977) 212: I’m going to throw a lot of monkey wrenches in that machinery.
1947		F. Brown Fabulous Clipjoint (1949) 106: I guess I went off kind of half-cocked. I threw a monkey wrench in things.
1961		W.R. Burnett Conant 102: ‘Now don’t start throwing monkey wrenches into the machinery. I had a hard time persuading Tony as it was’.
1974		C. Loken Come Monday Morning 152: Let’s see he better figger it out again he din’t wanna let hisself get too excited maybe there was a monkey wrench in there somewhere.
1978		(ref. to 1917-18) H. Berry Make the Kaiser Dance 40: Those damn Senegalese, they threw a monkey wrench in our plans.
2000		Indep. Rev. 20 Apr. 7: It could really throw a wrench in our plans if he got sick.

(Aus.) extreme, ‘asking too much’.

1885

Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Aug. 4/2: It is openly stated that several men whose names appear among the recently-created crowd of J’s.P., are employés of Wright, Heaton, and Co. Is this true? If so, isn’t it ‘a little too much of the monkey’ – too ‘steep’ a dose for the stomachs of the average elector?

a euph. for the anus; usu. as a phr. of coarse dismissal, you can shove/put it/them where the monkey...; note extrapolation in cit. 1956.

1911		E. Dyson ‘On a Bender’ in Benno and Some of the Push 83: He swung the chair agin, ’n’ the Dago took her where the monkey tucks the nuts.
1922		‘J.H. Ross’ Mint (1955) 142: ‘Put that where the monkey put the nuts,’ retorted Taffy.
c.1939		B. Bennett ‘The Dampoor Express’ in Billy Bennett’s Third Budget 39: I shot him where the monkey used to gather all his nuts.
1946		(con. 1912) B. Marshall George Brown’s Schooldays 93: Oh, go and put your pater where the monkey put the nuts.
1954		T. Ronan Vision Splendid 303: You can wrap your thanks [...] round Fred Jason’s clothes and boots and jam the lot where the monkey put the pineapple.
1956		H. Ellison ‘Johnny Slice’s Stoolie’ in Deadly Streets (1983) 84: I told him to put it where he shit.
1960		G.W. Target Teachers (1962) 188: You can stick them where the monkey stuck his nuts.
1977		Maledicta 1 (Summer) 14: He slips it [i.e. an act of betrayal] to you where the rhinoceros got the javelin, or where the monkey shoved the nuts, or where Moby Dick got the old harpoon.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 1327/1: late C.19–20.
1999		R.G. Barrett Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] They could stick Port Stephens [...] Right where the monkey stuck the penny.
2001		A. Sillitoe Birthday 86: He gets a black look from the foreman and tells him to stuff the job where a monkey shoves its nuts.

see you are a thief and a murderer and you have killed a baboon and stole his face under baboon n.