monkey puzzle
UK/ˈmʌŋkiˌpʌz(ə)l/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Northern England/ˈmʊŋkiˌpʊz(ə)l/
monkey puzzle noun: a large coniferous tree, Araucaria araucana, native to Chile.
Noun
monkey puzzle (plural monkey puzzles)
- A large coniferous tree, Araucaria araucana, native to Chile.
- They could see the small stone house where she used to live, with a monkey puzzle in front of it like a moustache.1951, Victor Sawdon Pritchett, Mr Beluncle, New York: The Modern Library, published 2005, page 88
- Even those, such as the vicar, who might by education have been supposed to put a less superstitious valuation upon her character and who were too tolerant to believe ill of the stage profession in itself and in the proper place, could not believe its transplantation into a village to be right or...1953, Rosemary Manning, Remaining a Stranger, page 67
- Synonyms:
- Chile pine, Chilean pine, monkey puzzle tree, monkey tail tree
Examples of monkey puzzle in a sentence
- Two days later I took it to the former manse, a solid grey stately Victorian building with a tall monkey puzzle tree on the lawn.2003, Alasdair Gray, “Miss Kincaid's Autumn”, in Every Short Story, Edinburgh: Canongate, published 2012, page 747:
- In the late afternoon, I went for a walk along a monkey puzzle-lined trail.2012, Lawrence Winkler, Orion's Cartwheel, Victoria, BC: First Choice Books, →ISBN, page 178:
Synonyms of monkey puzzle
Forms of monkey puzzle
| plural | monkey puzzles |
|---|---|
| alternative form | monkeypuzzle |
| alternative form | monkey-puzzle |
Origin of monkey puzzle
From monkey + puzzle, apparently because the branches are so crowded and twisted that even a monkey would find it difficult to climb.
Questions about monkey puzzle
- What does monkey puzzle mean?
- Monkey puzzle means a large coniferous tree, Araucaria araucana, native to Chile.
- How do you use monkey puzzle in a sentence?
- Two days later I took it to the former manse, a solid grey stately Victorian building with a tall monkey puzzle tree on the lawn.
- What part of speech is monkey puzzle?
- Monkey puzzle is a noun.
- How do you pronounce monkey puzzle?
- Monkey puzzle is pronounced /ˈmʌŋkiˌpʌz(ə)l/ (UK).
- What is the plural of monkey puzzle?
- The plural of monkey puzzle is monkey puzzles.
Words near monkey puzzle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: monkey puzzle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-monkey puzzle.wav.
Cite this entry: “monkey puzzle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/monkey_puzzle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.