monkey business
/ˈmʌŋki ˌbɪznɪs/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.06 in modern English
25
Scrabble Score
14
Letters
3
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Stop all this monkey business and do your homework!"
- "I’m going to take off the cuffs, Slim, and off you, Jerry. But don’t try any monkey business. When Peters answers the door, you tell him everything’s O. K., and that you’re the committee, see? Once the door’s open, we’ll do the rest."
- "I'm looking for monkey business / Just playing around / I'm here on monkey business / And look what I found"
- "She wondered what sort of monkey business her neighbour was up to, sneaking out of his house at 1:00 am."
- "If you ever hear a man talking about his duty as a citizen, by the Living Jingo dont trust him. … He's up to some kind of monkey business nine times out of ten. You dont know what a relief it is to me that you and Joe are comfortably settled in life."
Etymology
From monkey + business, probably a calque of Bengali বাঁদরামি (bãdrami, “mischief”, literally “monkey-behaviour”), from বাঁদর (bãdor, “monkey”) + -আমি (-ami, suffix forming nouns referring to the properties, qualities, or states of the words to which it is attached), from the perception that monkeys behave mischievously.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈmʌŋki ˌbɪznɪs/
- British English: /ˈmʌŋkɪ ˌbɪznɪs/