apeman
noun
apeman is a noun meaning “A prehistoric man resembling an ape, especially one held to be a precursor to modern humans; a non-human australopithecine” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-P-E-M-A-N, and it appears about once in every 47 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of apeman is apemen.
What does apeman mean?
noun
- 1
A prehistoric man resembling an ape, especially one held to be a precursor to modern humans; a non-human australopithecine.
- 2
A human raised from childhood by apes (generally in reference to, or in imitation of, the fictional character Tarzan).
- 3
A reputed or legendary, large, bipedal, ape-like creature, as Bigfoot or the Yeti, or a primitive australopithecine still extant today.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of apeman
- apemen plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is apeman?
Apeman appears about once in every 47 million words in written English, the 211,986th 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).
Apeman in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense prehistoric man resembling an ape:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | homme-singe |
| German | Urmensch, Frühmensch, Java-Mensch |
| Portuguese | homem-macaco |
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 apeman come from?
From ape + man.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).