Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/apô

Possibly derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep- (“water”), compare Proto-Celtic *abū (“river”), if the word originally referred to a “water sprite”. Compare Proto-Celtic *abankos (“water creature”), from whence Welsh afanc and Breton avank (“beaver”), Middle Irish abacc (“dwarf”).^[1]

Traditionally assumed to be an ancient loanword instead, ultimately probably from an unidentified non-Indo-European language of regions in Africa or Asia where monkeys are native. The same wanderwort may be reflected in Hebrew קוֹף (qōf), Akkadian uqūpu, Egyptian gfj, Middle Persian [script needed] (kpyk' /⁠kabīg⁠/), Sanskrit कपि (kapí), all meaning “monkey, ape, vel sim.”, and Ancient Greek κῆπος (kêpos, “long-tailed monkey”). As Kroonen notes, the lack of an initial velar consonant in Germanic would then imply that the foreign word entered at a very early pre-Germanic stage, such that it was borrowed with an initial laryngeal, either *h₂eb- or *h₃eb-.^[2]

• IPA^(key): /ˈɑ.pɔːː/

*apô m^[2]

1. ape, monkey