octopus
/ˈɑktəpʊs/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.46 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any of several marine molluscs of the order Octopoda, having no internal or external protective shell or bone (unlike the nautilus, squid and cuttlefish) and eight arms each covered with suckers.
Countable
noun
An instance of a player scoring a touchdown immediately followed by a successful two-point conversion, resulting in a total score of eight points.
Countable; Informal; Uncountable
verb
To put (or attempt to put) one's fingers, hands or arms in many things or places at roughly the same time.
verb
To spread out in long arms or legs in many directions.
Example Sentences
- "Even octopuses without stylets almost certainly retain the molecular machinery necessary to build them."
- "In terms of diversity, cephalopods include the egg case making argonauts, shelled nautiluses, venomous blue-ringed octopuses and enigmatic giants like the giant and colossal squid. […] Fossilised ink sacs are more conclusively known from the extinct “soft-bodied” Coleoidea cephalopods in groups Belemitida (including belemnites with bullet-like internal skeletons commonly found as fossils) and Phragmoteuthida as well as from squid, octopus and cuttlefish fossils."
- "In one photograph, a teenaged Leah crouches by a tall cylindrical tank containing what she identified to me as a giant Pacific octopus named Pamela. We were pals, she said, in a voice that I thought seemed to strive for offhandedness, did you know they taste with their skin? Octopuses, I mean."
- "He rises up on his wasted legs, the healer's hands octopussed on his head."
- "A skinny, sauced-looking gent in shorts and baseball cap wandered in through the door, his arms octopussing no less than three pre-teen girls."
- "I took off my shirt, standing in swim trunks, embarrassed of my tour body, my hands octopussing around the ashamed drink tickets of my gut."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *oḱtṓw Proto-Hellenic *oktṓ Ancient Greek ὀκτώ (oktṓ) Proto-Indo-European *ped- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *pṓdsder. Ancient Greek πούς (poús) Ancient Greek ὀκτώπους (oktṓpous)bor. Latin octōpūsbor. English octopus Borrowed from Latin octōpūs, from Ancient Greek ὀκτώπους (oktṓpous), from ὀκτώ (oktṓ, “eight”) + πούς (poús, “foot”). Piecewise doublet of octopod and octopede.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ὀκτώπους
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈɑktəpʊs/
- British English: /ˈɒktəpʊs/
Usage
Inflected Forms
octopuses (plural)
octopusses (nonstandard, plural)
octopi (hypercorrect, plural)
octopii (hypercorrect, plural)
octopodes (plural, rare)
octopusses (present, singular)
octopuses (present, singular)
octopussing (participle, present)
octopusing (participle, present)
octopussed (participle, past)
octopussed (past)
octopused (participle, past)