1
as in hijinks
wildly playful or mischievous behavior
hockey players who are known for their monkeyshines on and off the ice
Synonyms & Similar Words
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2
as in trick
a playful or mischievous act intended as a joke
on the alert for paleontological monkeyshines ever since the unmasking of Piltdown man
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for monkeyshines
Noun
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Pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating are also on this month's calendar for the shelter's young residents, who range from under a year old to 18.—
Grace Tucker,
Cincinnati Enquirer,
21 Oct. 2025 -
The trick was just finding that next pile of exorbitant wealth and luring it in with our siren song of cultural relevance and creative ambition.—
John Lopez,
HollywoodReporter,
21 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Their relationship, tentative, intimate, and defiant, lingers long after the satirical skewering of male buffoonery has faded.—
Leila Latif,
IndieWire,
5 Sep. 2025
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He’s been tinkering with this messaging on and off since damn near the start of the century, when his criticism of the genre shifted from the power-holding executives (both white and Black) of the music industry who were profiting off buffoonery, a la Bamboozled, to rap music itself.—
Alphonse Pierre,
Pitchfork,
15 Aug. 2025
Noun
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Previously the June Squibb caper Thelma was Magnolia Pictures’ widest release with an opening of 1,290 theaters in June 2024.—
Anthony D'Alessandro,
Deadline,
24 Oct. 2025
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True to form, Reichardt doesn’t deliver a slick caper.—
Lisa Wong Macabasco,
Vogue,
20 Oct. 2025
Noun
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This Survivor 49 challenge tomfoolery actually began before the season even started filming.—
Dalton Ross,
Entertainment Weekly,
8 Oct. 2025
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Rite of passage or midnight tomfoolery?—
Jake Allen,
IndyStar,
10 Sep. 2025
Noun
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Schitt’s Creek made the calamitous Rose family famous, and their escapades can now be found in one place in Canada.—
Jesse Whittock,
Deadline,
20 Oct. 2025
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In Ibsen’s play, set solely in two contiguous rooms in the Tesmans’ villa, George comes home after a highly eventful night of escapades that are left unseen and merely described to Hedda.—
Richard Brody,
New Yorker,
17 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Butch Baker, who was Henry County sheriff until 2014, recalled an incident in which Bertram was accused of inappropriate horseplay at the community corrections office.—
Tony Cook,
IndyStar,
2 July 2025
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The action anime feature for everyone who couldn’t get enough of the horseplay in The Two Towers has finally cantered onto Max.—
Savannah Salazar,
Vulture,
1 Mar. 2025
Noun
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But even before that arrival, Mitchell was kicked out of the house by her roommates due to her drunken antics and unstable behavior.—
Breanne L. Heldman,
Entertainment Weekly,
21 Oct. 2025
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The Prince of Darkness died in Birmingham, England, on July 22 at 76 years old, leaving behind a legacy as a legendary heavy metal rock performer who, after years of various headline-worthy antics and struggles with addiction, made his foray into reality TV.—
KiMi Robinson,
USA Today,
20 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
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Cite this Entry
“Monkeyshines.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/monkeyshines. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
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