1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Monkey

MONKEY, a term apparently applicable to all members of the order Primates (q.v.) except man and perhaps the larger apes. In zoology it may be used in this wider sense, as inclusive of all the Primates except man and lemurs; but it may also be employed in a more restricted application, so as to denote all ordinary “monkeys” as distinct from baboons on the one hand and the tail-less man-like apes on the other. The word appears in English first in the 16th century. The Low-German version of Reynard the Fox (Reinke de Vos, 1479) calls the son of Martin, the ape, Moneke; and the French version has Monnekin, Monnequin; these are apparently Teutonic diminutives of a word for ape which occurs in several Romanic languages, e.g. Fr. monne, It. monna, &c.