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- Dictionarymonkey business/ˈmʌŋkɪ ˌbɪznɪs/
noun
- 1. mischievous or deceitful behaviour: informal "she wasn't going to have any monkey business where the reputation of her only daughter was concerned"
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behaviour that is not acceptable or is dishonest: The teacher suspected that there had been some monkey business going on while she was out of the room. SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases. Cheating & tricking. anti-fraud. bad faith. bamboozle. bilk. blackmail. deceive. diddle. feint. flannel. funny business. game-fixing. grifter. gull. gyp
The meaning of MONKEY BUSINESS is shenanigan. How to use monkey business in a sentence.
monkey business. noun [ U ] us / ˈmʌŋ.ki ˌbɪz.nɪs / uk / ˈmʌŋ.ki ˌbɪz.nɪs /. Add to word list. behavior that is not acceptable or is dishonest: The teacher suspected that there had been some monkey business going on while she was out of the room. SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases.
Monkey business is one of those animal idioms that make a lot of sense — just picture a rascally monkey stealing the hat off your head and running away. The phrase first came into use around the start of the twentieth century, possibly from the earlier term monkeyshines , which had the same meaning.
Definition of monkey business noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.
1. frivolous or mischievous behavior. 2. improper or underhanded conduct; trickery. Most material © 2005, 1997, 1991 by Penguin Random House LLC. Modified entries © 2019 by Penguin Random House LLC and HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Word origin. [1880–85, Amer.] monkey business. dishonest or unacceptable behaviour.
monkey business. Tricks; underhanded goings-on. This term, which transfers the mischievous, sly actions of monkeys to human beings, began to be used in the 1880s. It may have been a replacement for monkeyshines, which originated in the United States about 1820 and meant mischievous tricks.
The earliest known use of the noun monkey business is in the 1830s. OED's earliest evidence for monkey business is from 1835, in the Examiner . monkey business is formed within English, by compounding; modelled on a Bengali lexical item.
A complete guide to the word "MONKEY BUSINESS": definitions, pronunciations, synonyms, grammar insights, collocations, examples, and translations.
Define monkey business. monkey business synonyms, monkey business pronunciation, monkey business translation, English dictionary definition of monkey business. n. Slang Silly, mischievous, or deceitful acts or behavior. American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
