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Kanji for Monkey
The kanji most commonly used for "Monkey" are 猿、申.
猿
Kanji that mean Monkey
猿 (saru / en) is the monkey — the beast radical 犭 with 袁 lending the sound. Japan is the northernmost home of wild monkeys, and the culture is thick with them: the three wise monkeys of Nikkō — 見ざる言わざる聞かざる, see not, say not, hear not — pun on -zaru, the negative ending that sounds like saru. 猿楽, “monkey music”, was the medieval theatre that became Noh.
The proverb everyone knows is 猿も木から落ちる — “even monkeys fall from trees”: even experts fail. Less flattering, 猿真似 (“monkey imitation”) is mindless copying, and history remembers that Hideyoshi, the peasant who unified Japan, was nicknamed Saru by his lord — an insult he outclimbed.
申 (saru / shin) is the zodiac monkey — ninth of the twelve signs; people born in its years are credited with wit and mischief. The same character otherwise reads “to state humbly” (申す), a coincidence of borrowing, not of monkeys.
Words using Monkey kanji
Everyday Japanese vocabulary built from the characters above.
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申請
しんせい
application; request; petition
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答申
とうしん
report; reply; findings
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申し込み
もうしこみ
application; entry; request
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申告
しんこく
report; return (e.g. tax); statement
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申し入れ
もうしいれ
proposal; offer; report
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申し立て
もうしたて
statement; account (of something); declaration
Before you use Monkey kanji
猿 reads as the animal — clever, mischievous, a little irreverent (and "even monkeys fall from trees" gives it a humble-expert charm). It is not an insult on skin, though 猿真似 keeps a mocking sense in speech. For a zodiac birth-year tattoo, use 申 — that is the character the calendar itself wears.