chimpanzee
[chim-pan-zee, chim-pan-zee]
- a large, somewhat arboreal anthropoid ape, Pan troglodytes, of equatorial Africa, having a brown-to-black coat, a relatively hairless face with a rounded muzzle, prominent ears, and hands adapted for knuckle-walking, noted for its intelligence and humanlike behavior: now greatly reduced in number and threatened with extinction in the wild.
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Compare pygmy chimpanzee.
Origin of chimpanzee
First recorded in 1730–40; presumably < a Bantu language of the Atlantic coast
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for chimpanzee
Contemporary Examples
As a friend once told me, “A chimpanzee could have made money in L.A. real estate—and many did.”
The author of Guns, Germs, and Steel is out with an adaptation for young people of The Third Chimpanzee.
Tell me about your earliest personal interaction with a chimpanzee.
On Wednesday, the collection of pictures by Mikki (pictured above), a chimpanzee, reeled in roughly $75,000 at Sotheby's.
He clung to me like a chimpanzee baby with all four of his weakened limbs.
Historical Examples
But when it is transfused into a chimpanzee there is an harmonious mingling of the two.
The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4)J. Arthur Thomson
The subject is closed by a quotation from Grandpré on the habits of the chimpanzee.
Lamarck, the Founder of EvolutionAlpheus Spring Packard
I ask because the Chimpanzee does not open its mouth when astonished, or when listening.
More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume IICharles Darwin
She never favours me with her views,' said Fox-Moore, with his chimpanzee smile.
The ConvertElizabeth Robins
Kate was very glad to hear that we had let the chimpanzee go.
In the Wilds of AfricaW.H.G. Kingston
chimpanzee
- a gregarious and intelligent anthropoid ape, Pan troglodytes, inhabiting forests in central W Africa
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Word Origin
C18: from Kongo dialect
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for chimpanzee
n.
1738, from a Bantu language of Angola (cf. Tshiluba kivili-chimpenze "ape"). Short form chimp first attested 1877.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper