Monkeyed

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To imitate or mimic someone imprecisely or playfully ; to handle or interfere with something in a foolish or clumsy manner
2. To copy or mimic behavior often in a mocking or unserious way ; to meddle with or alter something carelessly or disrespectfully
3. To make a rough or humorous imitation of a person or action ; to tamper with or manipulate something with little skill or thought

Etymology: "Monkeyed" is simply the past tense of "monkey" used as a verb, so the story belongs to the noun. The origin of "monkey" itself is genuinely unsettled. One theory links it to "monk" with the diminutive suffix "-ey", suggesting a little monk, perhaps because of the animal's hooded or cowled look. A stronger candidate traces it to a German folk-tale figure: in the medieval beast epic "Reynard the Fox", the ape Martin's son is named Moneke, and the name may reflect a colloquial Middle Low German word that spread widely. Other proposals run through French and Italian. Old French "monnekin" was the name of a monkey in a medieval French work, and it may come from Italian "monna", a shortening of a Spanish word for a female monkey, which itself descends from Arabic "maymūn", meaning baboon. A competing view is that "monnekin" was actually borrowed from Dutch "mannekin", meaning little human, in which case "monkey" is a doublet of "mannequin". The Dutch link is an appealing explanation, but no single account has been settled.