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PlainSpell

ape

/eɪp/noun, verb, adjective

ape is spelled A-P-E: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 3.0 times per million words in written English, the 15,368th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, ape means “An anthropoid of the superfamily Hominoidea, generally larger than monkeys and distinguished from them by having no tail” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of ape is apes.

How many letters and syllables are in ape?

Letters3: A-P-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing3.0 times per million words; the 15,368th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is ape?

Ape appears 3.0 times per million words in written English, the 15,368th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce ape?

  • /eɪp/

Ape has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-ape.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with ape?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as ape.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: pea.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of ape

  • apes plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • aping participle, present
  • apeing participle, present
  • aped participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does ape mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

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

  2. 2

    A Hominoidea primate other than a human.

  3. 3

    derogatoryAn unintelligent or unsophisticated person, especially one who behaves irrationally or in an uncivilised manner.

  4. 4

    derogatoryA black person.

  5. 5

    One who apes; a foolish imitator.

  6. 6

    A person who invests in meme stock, especially one who uses subreddits such as /r/wallstreetbets.

verb

  1. 1

    To behave like an ape.

  2. 2

    To imitate or mimic, particularly to imitate poorly.

adjective

  1. 1

    slangWild; crazy.

    We were ape over the new look.

noun

as APE
  1. 1

    Initialism of alkylphenol ethoxylate.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Ape in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchsinge, hominoïdé, singe anthropoïde (primate of the clade Hominoidea), singer (to imitate)
GermanAffe, Menschenaffe (primate of the clade Hominoidea), nachäffen (to imitate)
Portuguesemacaco, símio (primate of the clade Hominoidea), imitar (to imitate), primata (derogatory: uncivilized person), macaquear (to behave like an ape)
Spanishsimio, mono, primate (derogatory: uncivilized person), monear (to behave like an ape)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does ape come from?

From Middle English ape, from Old English apa (“ape, monkey”), from Proto-West Germanic *apō, from Proto-Germanic *apô (“monkey, ape”), possibly derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep- (“water”), compare Proto-Celtic *abū (“river”) (hence English place name Avon, Irish abha, Welsh afon), if the word originally referred to a "water sprite". Traditionally assumed to be an ancient loanword instead, ultimately probably from an unidentified non-Indo-European language of regions in Africa or Asia where monkeys are native.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after ape