Brewer's: Jack-a-napes

or Jackanapes = Jack of apes. An impertinent, vulgar prig. (See Jeannot.) More likely, it is Jack and ape, formed on the model of Jack-ass, a stupid fool.

“I will teach a scurvy jackanape priest to meddle or make.” —Shakespeare: Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 4.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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