gibbon

Etymology

Reborrowing from French gibbon, folk etymology (compare English Gibbon) ultimately from an Aslian language.

noun

1. A small ape of the family Hylobatidae with long limbs, which it uses to travel through rainforests by swinging from branch to branch.
   '[…] Suppose that in years to come, when the Church's troubles seem to be over, there should come an apostate of my own trade, a false historian, with the mind of Cicero or Tacitus and the soul of an animal,' and he nodded towards the gibbon who fretted his golden chain and chattered for fruit. 1950, Evelyn Waugh, Helena