jackanapes

noun

1. (obsolete)(A proper name for) an ape or monkey, especially a tame one kept for entertainment or as a pet.

   “To iettynge, to iaggynge, and to full of iapes; / To mockynge, to mowynge, to lye a iackenapes: […]”

   “He grynnes and he gapis, / As it were iack napis.”

   “Can Iack an Ape be merry vvhen his clog is at his heele.”

   “A fair sight we are; and had I but a rebeck or guitar at my back, and a jackanapes on my shoulder, we should seem as joyous a brace of strollers as ever touched string at a castle gate.”

   “[…] I could see him climbing like a jackanapes, for that part was again very steep; […]”

2. (broadly, dated, derogatory)(A proper name for) a person thought to behave like an ape or monkey, for example, in being impudent, mischievous, vain, etc.; specifically (chiefly humorous), an impudent or mischievous child.

   “I [Aye], quoth Jack a napes, by these ten bones, / Nothing happens amiss to a præparid minde, / Tis good philosophy, katt will to kinde.”

   “VVas there euer man had ſuch lucke? vvhen I kiſt the Iacke vpon an vp-caſt, to be hit avvay? I had a hundred pound on't: and then a vvhoreſon Iacke-an-apes muſt take me vp for ſvvearing, as if I borrovved mine oathes of him, and might not ſpend them at my pleaſure.”

   “Now, she hath favoured, doth favour, and will favour, this jack-an-ape,—for what good part about him I know not, save that as one noble lady will love a messan dog, and another a screaming popinjay, and a third a Barbary ape, so doth it please our noble dame to set her affections upon this stray elf of a page, […]”

   “I beg to say, that I use those last expressions advisedly, sir, and not in the sense in which they are now used by Jackanapeses. There were no Jackanapeses when I was a boy, Mr. Hood. England was Old England when I was young.”

   “[W]hat right has any free, reasonable soul on earth, to sell himself for a shilling a-day to murder any man, right or wrong— […] just because such a whiskered, profligate jackanapes as that officer, […] is set to command grey-headed men before he can command his own meanest passions.”

3. (broadly, derogatory, obsolete, rare)A crucifix.

   “I wyl rather haue these knees pared of, then I wil kneele to yonder iacknapes (meaning the rode) God healpe me I am borne to trouble and aduersity in this world.”

4. (broadly, obsolete)A small pulley which keeps a rope in line when lifting ore, water, etc., from a mine.
5. (form-of, plural)plural of jackanape