5. (military).—A rocket-driving instrument.
6. (nautical).—A vessel in which a mess receives its full allowance of grog.
7. (old).—See quot.
1889. Notes & Queries, 7 S. vii. 22 June, p. 498. The monkey was a small 'bustle', which in the days of very short waists was worn just below the shoulder blades.
8. (American).—The female pudendum. For synonyms see Monosyllable.
Verb. (common).—To trifle; to play; to fool about.
1887. Francis, Saddle & Mocassin, 143. It is just possible that I may have been monkeying with the cards a little.
1889. Harper's Mag., lxxix. 465. I hope he'll fetch money. I've had enough o' monkeying 'long o' checks.
Monkey on horseback, subs. phr. (old).—See quot.
1785. Grose, s.v. Who put that monkey on horseback without tying his legs? Vulgar wit on a bad horseman.
1811. Lex. Bal., s.v. Monkey.
Monkey on a wheel, subs. phr. (common).—A bicyclist. Fr. un imbécile à deux roues.
Monkey with a long tail, subs. phr. (legal).—See quot. A money up the chimney = a mortgage on one's house.
1886. Graphic, 10 April, p. 399. To a lawyer . . . a mortgage is a monkey with a long tail.
To get one's monkey up, verb. phr. (common).—1. To get angry. Hence, his monkey is up (or he has a monkey on his back) = he is angry. Fr. reniquer.
1877. Five Years' Penal Servitude, iii. p. 229. My monkey was up, and I felt savage.
1888. Rolf Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms, ix. The mare, like some women when they get their monkey up, was clean out of her senses.
1891. Lic. Vict. Gazette, 23 Jan. Each man's monkey was up.
To suck the monkey, verb. phr. (nautical).—1. To drink rum out of cocoa-nuts, emptied of milk and filled with spirits; (2) to liquor from a cask through a gimlet-hole and a straw (called tapping the admiral, which see); and (3) to drink from the bottle.
1811. Lex. Bal., s.v. Monkey.
1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, lvii. I didn't peach at Barbados, when the men sucked the monkey.
1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, 'The Black Mousquetaire.' What the vulgar call sucking the monkey, Has much less effect on a man when he's funky.
1864. Daily Telegraph, 26 July. Behind and in front of the bourgeois warriors, who, standing or sitting at ease, were smoking or taking a suck at the monkey, otherwise the whisky flask, there marched another dress parade.
Monkey with a tin tool, subs. phr. (common).—A phrase expressive of impudence or self-content: e.g., O, they're as cocky as monkeys with tin tools.
Monkey-board, subs. (obsolete).—The
conductor's place on an old-style
omnibus.
1860. Punch, xxxviii. p. 186. I was on the monkey-board behind.
1883. Jas. Greenwood, Tag, Rag, & Co., p. 27. The omnibus conductors . . . the ill-paid and hard-worked drudges of the monkey-board.
Monkey-boat, subs. (nautical).—A
long, narrow, canal boat. Also
a small boat used in the docks.
