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Unknown. Thought to have been borrowed from a Bantu language. Bantu maka, "cat", comes from -mañga (an old East African Bantu word for the sea-coast, often applied to any strange or foreign product). But it seems unlikely that the Bantu would have used such a word to denote familiar animals like apes and monkeys. However, none of the many Bantu words for apes and monkeys resembles "macaco". Other suggested derivations include:
A distinction is not commonly made between apes and monkeys in Portuguese. Where it is, mono is used for apes and macaco for middle-sized simians. A more common distinction is made between macacos and micos(“small, long-tailed simians”).
^ Antenor Nascentes (1955) “macaco”, in Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa (in Portuguese), 2nd edition, volume I, Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Acadêmica, page 307, columns 1–2