Word.ws English Dictionary

parrot and monkey time

parrot and monkey time noun: a period of quarrelling.

Noun

parrot and monkey time (plural not attested)

  1. (US, no plural, obsolete) A period of quarrelling.
    • The esteemed Presbyterians of South Carolina have been having a real parrot and monkey time over evolution, with the result that after a year of charge and counter charge, the evolutionary wing of the society is ahead[…]1888, Life, volume 12, page 240
    • If he is inclined to be frisky, however, and they both take it into their heads to run there is generally a parrot and monkey time of it[…]1894, Sheldon Jackson, Report on Introduction of Domesticated Reindeer into Alaska

Origin of parrot and monkey time

First appears c. 1882 in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Obsolete since c. 1920.

Questions about parrot and monkey time

What does parrot and monkey time mean?
Parrot and monkey time means a period of quarrelling.
What part of speech is parrot and monkey time?
Parrot and monkey time is a noun.

Words near parrot and monkey time in the dictionary

  1. parrokets
  2. Parrondo's paradox
  3. parroquet
  4. parroquets
  5. parrot
  6. parrot and monkey time
  7. Parrot Cay
  8. parrot coal
  9. parrot cries
  10. parrot crossbill
  11. parrot crossbills

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: parrot and monkey time (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:

Cite this entry: “parrot and monkey time.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/parrot_and_monkey_time. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.