magot

American  

[ma-goh, mah-, mag-uht] / mæˈgoʊ, mɑ-, ˈmæg ət /

noun

1. Barbary ape.

2. a small, grotesque Japanese or Chinese carved figure.

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magot British  

/ ˈmæɡət, mɑːˈɡəʊ /

noun

1. a Chinese or Japanese figurine in a crouching position, usually grotesque

2. a less common name for Barbary ape

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Etymology

Origin of magot

First recorded in 1600–10; from French, Middle French, alteration of Magog, a people seduced by Satan in Revelation 20:8; used figuratively in non-Christian medieval legends, and probably applied derisively to the apes in allusion to their supposed grotesqueness; Magog ( def. )

Example Sentences

What worries authorities is that the French magot population may be as high as several hundred thousand.

From Time Magazine Archive

Earlier, an adult magot was found in Paris' Bois de Vincennes tethered to a tree.

From Time Magazine Archive

But as the Barbary monkey, which the French call magot, grows, so do its fangs, claws and temper.

From Time Magazine Archive

This month, police captured an escaped magot in a Paris-area park, less than a month after a pair of free-roaming magots were captured in a park in Lyons.

From Time Magazine Archive

For I have lived long enough to learn that the monstrous and outlandish figure, the magot chinois whom I believed to be but a memorial of our forefathers’ mental aberration, that grotesque potiche, works! 

From Notes on Life and Letters by Conrad, Joseph