parrot and monkey time en · NOUN
Etymology
First appears c. 1882 in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Obsolete since c. 1920.
Meanings
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(US, no-plural, obsolete) A period of quarrelling.
The esteemed Presbyterians of South Carolina have been having a real parrot and monkey time over evolution, with the result that after a year of charge and counter charge, the evolutionary wing of the society is ahead[…]
1888, Life, volume 12, page 240:If he is inclined to be frisky, however, and they both take it into their heads to run there is generally a parrot and monkey time of it[…]
1894, Sheldon Jackson, Report on Introduction of Domesticated Reindeer into Alaska: