When someone calls you a "monkeyshine" what does it really mean?

mon⋅key⋅shine  [muhng-kee-shahyn]

–noun
Usually, monkeyshines. a frivolous or mischievous prank; monkey business.

Origin:
1820–30; monkey + shine

“Monkeyshines” is a slang term that does not describe a person but his mischievous behavior.

That didn’t take long-thanks!

it’s what i ask for when im feeling frisky.

It’s a word I heard growing up…not so popular now, I would bet.

I figured you could relate. It makes me sad thinking about the word, or him saying it.

I’ve never heard it before in my life. I found it here

My father used to ask us if we were up to some kind of monkeyshines. I haven’t heard the expression in ages. I agree, it never refers to a person—it means antics.

There’s another one of those words. You never have just one antic.

@Jeruba: What about A Huxley’s “Antic Hay”? Or has my memory gone softer than usual?

Edit: I just found this: “The title is from the play Edward II by Christopher Marlowe c1593. Act One, Scene One, “My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawn, shall with their goat feet dance an antic hay” which is quoted on the frontispiece. “Antic hay”, here, refers to a playful dance.” Source

I guess a better question in hind sight is. How did the term evolve monkey? shine?

Monkeyshines means antics, monkeyshine refers to the person. ;)

Edit: Although the second given definition on Dictionary.com tells me I’m wrong u_u

It’s a lot like shenanigans, but a hell of a lot cuter!

i like monkeyshines and i like flibbertygibbet.

@gailcalled, as an adjective, yes. But not as a singular noun.

@faye, do you also like to be flabbergasted by poppycock and worry that a snallygaster will send your bricabrac all cattywampus?

It means you’re doing the shoebox shimmy when you should be standing like a soldier.

i have to go look up some words!!!

hey, i will worry now!! lol

My grandma says “Oh, monkeyshine” when you are bullshitting her. I’d never really thought about what it meant, just thought it was some meaningless phrase that meant “Quit bullshitting me!”

It’s hard to imagine how this colloquialism isn’t racist (historically) but it has racist overtones. Consider any time someone introduces monkey as a compound phrase, and it does not contain “business,” that epithet (which might roll off your grandmothers tongue like cloud-gathering Zeus) is why Zora Neale Hurston is required reading – i.e. so people don’t go around saying cotton pickin minute and brazil nut.

And so does the bible-so what’s new.

@Jeruba: I thought about that at 4:00AM when MIlo strolled along my spine. I was wearing my galligaskins. He was en déshabillé.

As usual, you are the Monarch of Usage whose ukases carry weight with me.

i have to go look up more words!

I have an old post card from 1910. The front says ” If you must be a shine, don’t be a monkey shine be a sunshine. I agree with the above responses/