Other forms: apes
An ape is a large tailless primate such as a gorilla. A great ape, the apes at the zoo, gorillas and other apes.
The tail is the test: monkeys have one and apes do not, which is the difference the words carry. As a verb, to ape somebody is to imitate them badly, and going ape means losing your temper.
1nounapeA large tailless primate such as a gorilla.
“At the zoo, the young ape swung from rope to rope while its mother watched.”
ape is an animal.
Old English apa names the animal, from a Germanic root shared across northern Europe.
Middle English
ape
English, today
ape
From Middle English ape. From Middle English ape, from Old English apa (“ape, monkey”), from Proto-West Germanic apō, from Proto-Germanic apô (“monkey, ape”), possibly derived from Proto-Indo-European h₂ep- (“water”), compare Proto-Celtic abū (“river”) (hence English place name a doublet of Avon, Irish abha, Welsh afon), if the word originally referred to a "water sprite". Traditionally assumed to be an ancient loanword instead, ultimately probably from an unidentified non-Indo-European language of regions in Africa or Asia where monkeys are native.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA