MONKEY  , a

term apparently applicable to all members of the order PRIMATES (q.v.) except man and perhaps the larger apes . In zoology it may be used in this wider sense, as inclusive of all the Primates except man and lemurs; but it may also be employed in a more restricted application, so as to denote all ordinary " monkeys " as distinct from baboons on the one hand and the tail-less man-like apes on the other . The word appears in English first in the 16th century . The Low-German version of Reynard the Fox (Reinke de Vos, 1479) calls the son of Martin, the ape, Moneke; and the French version has Monnekin, Monnequin; these are apparently Teutonic diminutives of a word for ape which occurs in several Romanic languages, e.g . Fr. monne, It. manna, &c .