If you’ve ever wondered how to translate “jack of all trades” into Spanish, wonder no more.
Estuche de monerías
Estuche refers to a box used by surgeons, which carries many instruments. Monerías refers to the mimicking actions of a monkey. Put the two words together, and you get a mimicking monkey with a box of surgical instruments. That scares me.
According to a Mexican citizen in Mexico City, who lives in la segunda sección de San Juan de Aragón, estuche de monerías refers to someone who is a jack of all trades.
According to the Real Academia Española (the official guardian of the “castellano” language), being an estuche means having the ability to do many things.
www.rae.es;
“ser alguien un estuche 1. loc. verb. coloq. Tener habilidad para cosas diversas.” However, Monerías is not officially found in the forementioned RAE dictionary.
According to wordmagicsoft.com, monería refers to either mimicry, or to a lovely thing.
According to wordreference.com, a monería is a monkey’s actions.
Since monkeys are good at mimicking, I would assume that estuche de monería refers to the ability of a person to mimic the actions of a wide variety of professions, or trades.
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