Illustration of macaque
: any of a genus (Macaca) of chiefly Asian monkeys typically having a sturdy build and including some short-tailed or tailless forms
especially
: rhesus monkey
Examples of macaque in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The company confirmed that 43 rhesus macaque primates escaped from an enclosure at one of the company's facilities.
—
Lucia Suarez Sang, CBS News, 24 Jan. 2025
Today’s lab macaques are still generally housed in small metal cages — the size of telephone booths, as neuroscientist Garet Lahvis has put it for Vox — inside windowless rooms with little opportunity for free movement.
—Marina Bolotnikova, Vox, 18 June 2025
After the Trump administration began freezing funding to Harvard this month, researchers developing a new tuberculosis vaccine faced the prospect of having to euthanize their rhesus macaques.
—Emily Anthes, New York Times, 29 Apr. 2025
Working with the spleens of primates (macaques), the team engineered microenvironments within the test organs to support human pancreatic islets.
—Discover Magazine, 23 May 2025
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Lucia Suarez Sang, CBS News, 24 Jan. 2025
Today’s lab macaques are still generally housed in small metal cages — the size of telephone booths, as neuroscientist Garet Lahvis has put it for Vox — inside windowless rooms with little opportunity for free movement.
—Marina Bolotnikova, Vox, 18 June 2025
After the Trump administration began freezing funding to Harvard this month, researchers developing a new tuberculosis vaccine faced the prospect of having to euthanize their rhesus macaques.
—Emily Anthes, New York Times, 29 Apr. 2025
Working with the spleens of primates (macaques), the team engineered microenvironments within the test organs to support human pancreatic islets.
—Discover Magazine, 23 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for macaque
Cite this Entry
“Macaque.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macaque. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
: any of various monkeys mostly from Asia that includes some with either short or no tails
especially
: rhesus monkey
Etymology
French, from Portuguese macaco, from makaku, plural of kaku, name for an African monkey in one or more Bantu languages of Gabon and Congo
Medical Definition
: any of numerous short-tailed Old World monkeys of the genus Macaca and related genera chiefly of southern Asia
especially
: rhesus monkey
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