as in funning
wildly playful or mischievous behavior
all that monkeying was sure to end in someone or something getting hurt
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
as in ornery
Related Words
Dissimilar Words
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for monkeying
Adjective
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At 0-2, the Chiefs may be a little more ornery than usual.—
Andrew Greif,
NBC news,
22 Sep. 2025 -
The goal is to capitalize on the holidays when kids will be out of school and eager to see some ornery avians.—
Brent Lang,
Variety,
18 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Critics accused him of aping Farage’s rhetoric and warned that Labour could lose votes to the left in trying to court the right.—
Christian Edwards,
CNN Money,
30 Sep. 2025
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Ryback shows the younger man's relaxation-as-growth around impressive set pieces, including a segment of aping famed concert pianists Alfred Brendel and Glenn Gould as well as Hoffman's blistering rant after a visit to Dachau.—
Jim Higgins,
jsonline.com,
22 Sep. 2025
Noun
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Only an Aries, like Lily, can take Barney’s jabs in a joking way.—
Lisa Stardust,
PEOPLE,
19 Sep. 2025
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When Peanut pulled his second escape act, his owners knew where to look and handled Peanut's disappearance in a joking manner.—
Michael Nied,
People.com,
2 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Cardi previously told The Breakfast Club that their beef started when BIA accused Cardi of copying her style.—
Tomás Mier,
Rolling Stone,
10 Oct. 2025
-
Ndiweni even celebrated his first goal by copying his former Newcastle team-mate Alexander Isak’s celebration.—
Nnamdi Onyeagwara,
New York Times,
8 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Finally, after plenty of clowning, Taylor Swift has revealed that her 12th album is on the way, titled The Life of a Showgirl.—
Tom Smyth,
Vulture,
13 Aug. 2025
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This is a work in which the slapstick clowning and the tricky verbal non sequiturs should be merely the surface for roiling undercurrents of anguish, futility, despair and fear.—
David Rooney,
HollywoodReporter,
3 Sep. 2019
Adjective
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If a rascally possum does become a problem, here's how to get rid of it and keep that opossum away.—
Arricca Elin SanSone,
Southern Living,
6 Aug. 2025
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In 1950, scientists deployed a virus called Myxoma to destroy the rascally rabbits.—
Bethany Brookshire,
Smithsonian Magazine,
8 Dec. 2022
Verb
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Their new protein works by mimicking the two hormones and signaling the liver, which naturally responds to them both depending on the body’s needs.—
Hannah Millington,
MSNBC Newsweek,
10 Oct. 2025
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Rather than mimicking the human form, the robot is engineered to perform efficiently on manufacturing floors, from machine tending to material transport, addressing real-world automation challenges.—
Kaif Shaikh,
Interesting Engineering,
8 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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And the first person viewers saw on-screen this week was Patterson’s fellow newcomer Jeremy Culhane—a fresh face to those who have never encountered social-media clips of his impish appearances on the niche comedy streamer Dropout.—
Erik Adams,
The Atlantic,
5 Oct. 2025
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The impish Reeves brings puppy-dog codependence to the scruffy Estragon, who leans on Vladimir as his body and memory fail him.—
Patrick Ryan,
USA Today,
29 Sep. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Monkeying.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/monkeying. Accessed 14 Oct. 2025.
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