monkey business | Idiomator

Meaning: Activitythat ismischievous,stupid, ortime-wasting.[from mid 19th c.]Synonyms:seeThesaurus:mischiefStop all thismonkey businessand do your homework!1918December 10,J[oseph] Allan Dunn, “The Man With the Mole”, inDetective Story Magazine, volume XIX, number 5, New York, N.Y.:Street & Smith Corporation,→OCLC, chapter VIII (The End of Baldy),page39, column 1:I’m going to take off the cuffs, Slim, and off you, Jerry. But don’t try anymonkey business. When Peters answers the door, you tell him everything’s O. K., and that you’re the committee, see? Once the door’s open, we’ll do the rest.2008May 1, “Monkey BusinessWith ‘Bigfoot’ And ‘Big Monkey’”, inMalaysia Today‎[1]:2020January 24,Neil Tennant,Chris Lowe, “Monkey Business”, inHotspot, performed by thePet Shop Boys:I'm looking formonkey business/ Just playing around / I'm here onmonkey business/ And look what I found; Activity that ismorallyquestionableor evenmildlyillegal.Synonyms:hanky-panky;see alsoThesaurus:badnessShe wondered what sort ofmonkey businessher neighbour was up to, sneaking out of his house at 1:00 am.1925, John Dos Passos, “Revolving Doors”, inManhattan Transfer, New York, N.Y.; London:Harper & Brothers,→OCLC, 3rd section,page328:If you ever hear a man talking about his duty as a citizen, by the Living Jingo dont trust him. … He's up to some kind ofmonkey businessnine times out of ten. You dont know what a relief it is to me that you and Joe are comfortably settled in life.

Examples:

EN: Next time you see Dr. Arrowsmith. tell him for me that I don't stand for this kind of monkey business. and if he can't keep off my cattle.
ES: La próxima vez que vean al Dr. Arrowsmith... díganle que no me gustan estos engaños... y que mejor que se aleje de mi ganado y de mi vista.
EN: And say, listen, when you come in for a landing, none of your monkey business.
ES: Escucha, cuando aterrices, no hagas tonterías
EN: Hey no monkey business now, clipper, or I'll give it to you!
ES: No hagas ninguna tontería, Clipper, o me ocuparé de ti.
EN: Yeah, monkey business, I betcha.
ES: Ya... Algún trapicheo, seguro.
EN: We're going to cut out this monkey business and get married.
ES: Vamos a dejarnos de tonterías y casarnos.
EN: No monkey business.
ES: Y nada de tonterías.
EN: But no monkey business.
ES: Pero nada de trampas.
EN: - I knew they'd pull some monkey business.
ES: - Sabía que lo intentarían.
EN: What monkey business is this?
ES: ¿Qué disparates son éstos?
EN: Some monkey business was going on here that we want to find out about.
ES: Se han producido algunos chanchullos que queremos averiguar.
EN: That teach you not to have monkey business with Barney Glasgow.
ES: Eso les enseñará a no meterse con Barney Glasgow.
EN: I knew there was monkey business goin'on.
ES: Sabía que había un negocio sucio. Tienes razón.
EN: Some sort of monkey business. She may be double-crossing her partner.
ES: Algún acuerdo de negocios.
EN: And no monkey business. And don't give me the cross double.
ES: ¡Y no consiento que nadie me tome el pelo!
EN: I was tipped off some monkey business was going on here, and I'm going to break it up right now.
ES: Me avisaron que algo raro sucedía aquí, y voy a detenerlo ahora mismo.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).