great ape

American

[greyt eyp] / ˈgreɪt ˈeɪp /

noun

any extant or extinct member of the family Hominidae, or hominids: its extant species include humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.

great ape British

noun

any of the larger anthropoid apes, such as the chimpanzee, orang-utan, or gorilla

"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

great ape Scientific

/ grāt /

See anthropoid ape

Etymology

Origin of great ape

First recorded in 1770–75

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

great ape

The area is home to the world's rarest great ape, the tapanuli orangutan, just 800 of which were believed to exist in the wild before the disaster.

From Barron's ● Feb. 19, 2026

As exciting as this great ape baby boom is for L.A.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2025

"They can't say how they're feeling and they can be quite good at masking how they're feeling," explained Marianne Paisley, a researcher from the University of Sussex who is studying great ape wellbeing.

From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2025

The idea for this research came from about 15 years of working with captive great ape populations.

From National Geographic ● Dec. 18, 2023

Before them, something like a great ape was sitting asleep with its head between its knees.

From "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023