Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A fanciful, often grotesque figurine in the Japanese or Chinese style rendered in a seated position.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A Middle English form of maggot.
  • noun The Barbary ape, Inuus ecaudatus, which has a small tubercle in place of a tail.
  • noun A small grotesque figure; especially, one of the crouching or cross-legged figures common in Chinese or other Oriental art as knobs on the covers of large vases, and in similar uses.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) The Barbary ape.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic The Barbary ape.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Old French magos, a kind of monkey, from Magog, Magos, Magog, name of biblical land (Ezekiel 38–39) and tribe (Revelation 20:8–9), used as an emblem of ugliness in medieval romances.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word magot.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.