ape

noun

1. An anthropoid of the superfamily Hominoidea, generally larger than monkeys and distinguished from them by having no tail.

   “Of vvhat texte thou proveſt hell / vvill a nother prove purgatory / a nother lymbo patrum / and a nother the aſſumpcion of oure ladi: And a nother ſhall prove of the ſame texte that an Ape hath a tayle.”

2. A Hominoidea primate other than a human.
3. (derogatory)An unintelligent or unsophisticated person, especially one who behaves irrationally or in an uncivilised manner.
4. (derogatory, ethnic, slur)An unintelligent or unsophisticated person, especially one who behaves irrationally or in an uncivilised manner.

   “Animalistic dehumanisation, 'simianisation' and the animalising of black bodies through metaphorically likening these individuals to 'baboons,' 'monkeys' or 'apes' reveals racialised animality discourse in South Africa.”

5. One who apes; a foolish imitator.
6. (Internet)A person who invests in meme stock, especially one who uses subreddits such as /r/wallstreetbets.

   “I could not think of a better representation of the good in this world, let alone this r***^([sic]) band of apes on Reddit.”

   “The tragic consequences of Bed Bath & Beyond's whiplashing fortunes have cast an even darker cloud over Cohen's reputation. But in all likelihood the meme-stock phenomenon is here to stay--even if Cohen and his ilk are profiting off the backs of the "apes" who support them.”

   “In their self-professed and commonly invoked role of “degenerates” and “apes,” r/wallstreetbets commenters regularly adopt language of worship for those they admire, and in the case of GameStop, DeepFuckingValue, aka Roaring Kitty, aka Keith Gill was deemed worthy.”

   “It was however widely misinterpreted by mainstream media as an expression of the inability of the WallStreetBets members to make rational financial decisions (Pearkes, 2021)⁵. The argument that apes were incompetent investors was particularly reliant on one term: loss porn.”

   “With the economy humming and the stock market near record highs, the “apes” are back—and “in full-on risk mode.””

7. (abbreviation, alt-of, initialism)Initialism of alkylphenol ethoxylate.

   “The most important and commonly used APEs are nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), which account for 80% of the APE market.”

verb

1. (intransitive)To behave like an ape.
2. (transitive)To imitate or mimic, particularly to imitate poorly.

   “And well their dignity it ſuits, / To ape the gravity of brutes.”

   “But there’s this difference; one is gold put to the use of paving-stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver.”

   “It is not conceived as a mere “aping” in externals nor as an enacting in the sense of assuming a foreign role.”

   “Every year a paper or a book appears, bemoaning the fate of economics and complaining about its attempts to ape physics.”

adj

1. (not-comparable, slang)Wild; crazy.

   “We were ape over the new look.”

   “He went ape when he heard the bad news.”

   “Now we just need to create hype around the South Park Sucks Now digital coin, so we need to come up with things to give people FOMO and make them ape even harder.”