octopus

UK/ˈɒktəpʊs/US/ˈɑktəpʊs/

nounA2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,026 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: octopuses

An octopus is a sea animal with eight arms. A giant octopus, the octopus escaped, an octopus in the tank.

Two thirds of its neurons are in the arms rather than the head, so each arm solves problems fairly independently. It can change colour and texture in an instant while being colour-blind. The plural is octopuses; octopi is a mistaken Latin ending on a Greek word.

Definitions of octopus

1nounoctopusA sea animal with eight arms.A2+
“The octopus squeezed its soft body through a tiny gap in the rocks.”

octopus is a sea animal.

Where it comes from

Greek oktopous means eight-foot, from okto, eight, plus pous, a foot.

Latin
octōpūs
English, today
octopus

Built from

ὀκτώ · Ancient Greek — eight
πούς · Ancient Greek — foot

Borrowed from Latin octōpūs. Latin octōpūs, from Ancient Greek ὀκτώπους, from ὀκτώ (“eight”) + πούς (“foot”). octopod.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Animals

Practise this word

octopus in the wild

A battle with an octopus appears in Victor Hugo's book Toilers of the Sea.
Octopus
The mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) is a species of octopus from the Indo-Pacific region.
Mimic octopus
The common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) is a mollusk belonging to the class Cephalopoda.
Common octopus
Paul the Octopus was a common octopus who predicted the results of international association football matches.
Paul the Octopus
Annual global demand for octopus more than doubled from 1980 to 2019, from roughly 180,000 to about 370,000 tons.
Aquaculture of octopus

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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