Word.ws English Dictionary

monkeyspeak

monkeyspeak noun: the language supposedly used by monkeys.

Noun

monkeyspeak (uncountable)

  1. The language supposedly used by monkeys.
    • Meronym: oo oo aa aa
    • So the starlings employ calls which differentiate between aerial and terrestrial predators, and the vervets tune in and decipher them just as effectively as they use their own ‘monkeyspeak’.1992, Rod Preston-Mafham, Ken Preston-Mafham, “Enemies and Defence”, in Primates of the World, New York, N.Y.: Facts On File, →ISBN, page 171
    Synonyms:
    monkeyese

Examples of monkeyspeak in a sentence

  • Silent and still, we wait while the guide calls out to them in fluent monkeyspeak.1996 October 26, Nathan Ford, “Red in tooth and claw”, in The Guardian Weekend, London, page 70:
  • “Are you going to come over here and get shaved or do you want to lose a privilege?” The monkey might say: “Eeeech?” which is monkeyspeak for “What kind of privilege are we talking about here?”2006 November 25, John Boston, “Monkey See Monkey Do Monkey Bread …”, in The Santa Clarita Valley Signal, Santa Clarita, Calif., page A2...

Synonyms of monkeyspeak

Forms of monkeyspeak

alternative formmonkey-speak

Origin of monkeyspeak

From monkey + -speak.

Questions about monkeyspeak

What does monkeyspeak mean?
Monkeyspeak means the language supposedly used by monkeys.
How do you use monkeyspeak in a sentence?
Silent and still, we wait while the guide calls out to them in fluent monkeyspeak.
What part of speech is monkeyspeak?
Monkeyspeak is a noun.

Words near monkeyspeak in the dictionary

  1. monkeys' weddings
  2. monkeyshine
  3. monkeyshines
  4. monkeysona
  5. monkeysonas
  6. monkeyspeak
  7. monkeywalk
  8. monkeywalks
  9. monkeywrench
  10. monkeywrencher
  11. monkeywrenchers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: monkeyspeak (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-monkeyspeak.wav.

Cite this entry: “monkeyspeak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/monkeyspeak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.