ape

American  

[eyp] / eɪp /

noun

apes plural

1. Anthropology, Zoology. any member of the superfamily Hominoidea, the two extant branches of which are the lesser apes (gibbons) and the great apes (humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans).

2. (loosely) any primate except humans.

3. an imitator; mimic.

4. Informal. a big, ugly, clumsy person.

5. Disparaging and Offensive. (used as a slur against a member of a racial or ethnic minority group, especially a Black person.)

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verb (used with object)

apes, present (3rd person singular) aped, past participle, past aping present participle

1. to imitate; mimic.

   to ape another's style of writing.

adjective

1. Slang. (usually in the phrasego ape )

   1. violently emotional.

      When she threatened to leave him, he went ape.

   2. extremely enthusiastic (often followed by over orfor ).

      They go ape over old rock music.

      We were all ape for the new movie trailer.

ape British  

/ eɪp /

noun

1. any of various primates, esp those of the family Pongidae , in which the tail is very short or absent See anthropoid ape See also great ape

2. (not in technical use) any monkey

3. an imitator; mimic

4. informal a coarse, clumsy, or rude person

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verb

1. (tr) to imitate

Sensitive Note

See simianization.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• apelike
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• apes
  plural

Participles

• aping
  present
• aped
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• ape
  simple
• apes
  simple
• have aped
  perfect
• has aped
  perfect
• am aping
  progressive
• are aping
  progressive
• is aping
  progressive
• have been aping
  perfect progressive
• has been aping
  perfect progressive

Past

• aped
  simple
• had aped
  perfect
• was aping
  progressive
• were aping
  progressive
• had been aping
  perfect progressive

Future

• will ape
  simple
• will have aped
  perfect
• will be aping
  progressive
• will have been aping
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of ape

First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English apa; cognate with Old Saxon apo, Old Norse api, Old High German affo ( German Affe ); further origin uncertain

Explanation

To ape someone is to imitate them, often in a mocking way. Most people don't like being aped. To ape is to imitate, but it can mean a few different things. One type of aping is to blatantly imitate something or someone in every way. That's considered a bad thing because it's so unoriginal — it's a rip-off. Another kind of aping is like a caricature — to ape in this way is a way of making fun or spoofing someone. Either way, you probably don't want to be accused of aping.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ape apes aped aping

It also appears to have differed substantially from ape species of a similar age found in East Africa.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 24, 2026

Touching, embracing and kissing before stressful events may be an ancient way of building trust, according to scientists studying the behaviour of our closest ape relatives.

From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026

Laughter, however, is evolutionarily much older than speech and remains common to every living great ape, making it a rare opportunity to study how vocal communication evolved.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 2, 2026

Also looking to art history is Colette LaVette, whose canvases at Gillian Jason ape rococo stylings in swirls of impressionistic paint.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026

When the Blooms’ pony Sunflower made her first appearance, the crowd went ape.

From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols

Masripithecus shows that apes were already living in North Africa during the Early Miocene.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 24, 2026

The team also carried out biogeographic analyses to investigate where the common ancestor of all living apes most likely lived.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 24, 2026

The apes were observed during the five minutes before the peanuts arrived, when they knew food was coming.

From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026

"I'm playing Caesar in the first film, leading the apes to freedom and rebelling and breaking out of the facility," he recalls.

From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026

Men and women, yes, and fighting spirits, too, and armed creatures such as I had never seen—lizards and apes, great birds with poison spurs, creatures too outlandish to have a name I could guess at.

From "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman

“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” aped that scene.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2026

In the 1960s, a primitive chatbot that mindlessly aped a therapist had people pouring their hearts out to it.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2025

His misguided approach - often aped on the Accidentally Partridge social media account, which shares cringeworthy clips of public figures - is "provocative" but, Coogan hopes, "never mean-spirited."

From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2025

Eggers’ “Nosferatu” succeeds because the director’s alterations to Henrik Galeen’s original 1922 screenplay, aped from Stoker’s novel with a few tweaks, are minimal.

From Salon ● Dec. 24, 2024

They aped teacher’s snarling manner when they spoke to each other.

From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

Some analysts see Greenland aping Iceland’s success, combining tourism with fishing and cheap energy to attract tech companies.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 15, 2026

The plan is to craft something “safe and fun” that will “bring joy” to its users, especially “women and gay people,” at a time when other social media executives are aping norms of reactionary ultramasculinity.

From Slate ● Feb. 11, 2025

And so European footwear pivoted into the wide, box-toed shoes - and obviously, the public responded by aping the regal style with a flourish.

From BBC ● Jan. 5, 2025

This enrages Roy, who pushes over the podium and storms offstage with the other Roy Tillmans following him, aping his every gesture and statement.

From Salon ● Jan. 3, 2024

It is only as I do it that I realize who I am aping, whose face frightened me into wanting it for my own.

From "The Cruel Prince" by Holly Black

Related Words

• emulate
• imitate