octopus

en-noun

octopus (countable and uncountable, plural octopuses or octopusses or octopi or octopodes or octopii)

octopuses (plural)
octopusses (plural)
octopi (plural)
octopodes (plural)
octopii (plural)

From Latin octōpūs, from Ancient Greek ὀκτώπους (oktṓpous), from ὀκτώ (oktṓ, “eight”) + πούς (poús, “foot”).

Singapore
octopus
southern blue-ringed octopus

(countable) Any of several marine molluscs of the family Octopodidae, having no internal or external protective shell or bone (unlike the nautilus, squid and cuttlefish) and eight arms each covered with suckers.


octopus

en-verb

octopus (third-person singular simple present octopusses or octopuses, present participle octopussing or octopusing, simple past and past participle octopussed or octopused)

octopusses (present singular third-person)
octopuses (present singular third-person)
octopussing (participle present)
octopusing (participle present)
octopussed (participle past)
octopussed (past)
octopused (participle past)
octopused (past)

He rises up on his wasted legs, the healer's hands octopussed on his head.

1994, Susan Ketchin, The Christ-haunted Landscape:

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.

2006, Stuart Lloyd, Gone Troppo: Hot Babes, Warm Weather, Cold Beer. Paradise!:

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.

2018, Derrick C. Brown, Hello. It Doesn't Matter.:

To put (or attempt to put) one's fingers, hands or arms in many things or places at roughly the same time.

The sport could be called octopusing or octopus hunting— and any number may play. Supposing you catch an octopus, what do you have?

CRABBING AND OCTOPUSSING: Use the same method whether you skindive for crabs and octopi or gather them intertidally.

1977, Peter Howorth, Foraging Along the California Coast, Capra Press, →ISBN, page 97:

The municipal council assigned food quotas to each section and family contributions within sections. People spent the days before the visit fishing, octopusing, digging taro, cooking, and cleaning public spaces.

1993, Poyer Lin, NGATIK MASSACRE PB, page 163:


argonaut

(specifically, historical) A 49er, a person who took part in the California Gold Rush of 1849.


paper nautilus

en-noun

paper nautilus (plural paper nautiluses or paper nautili)

paper nautiluses (plural)
paper nautili (plural)

A pelagic octopus of genus Argonauta, found in warm seas, whose females produce a paper-thin egg case resembling a shell into which she deposits her eggs.


polypus

From Latin polypus, from Ancient Greek πολύπους (polúpous). Doublet of polyp.

He had been becalmed in the tropical seas, and had watched, in eager expectation, though unhappily always in vain, to see the colossal polypus rise from the water, and entwine its enormous arms round the masts and the rigging.

1818, Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, section VII:

From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

1830, Alfred Tennyson, “The Kraken”, in Poems, Chiefly Lyrical:

(obsolete) A tentacled cephalopod, such as an octopus, squid, or cuttlefish.


greater argonaut

greater argonaut (plural greater argonauts)

Argonauta argo
Argonauta argo#Translingual


cirrate

From Latin cirratus (“having ringlets”), from cirrus (“a curl”).


octopussy

Diminutive of octopus, either from octopus + -y or by analogy with pussy.

Lovable old Sam, with as many arms as an octopussy.

"Big fish like sharks and whales and—" she struggled with the word "— octopussies."

The bloody sea is filled with giant, man-eating sharks, and poisonous jellyfish, and bloody poisonous octopussies.


devilfish

devilfish (plural devilfishes or devilfish)

The unattractive reptilian specimen in the man’s right hand is an octopus, or devilfish, which constitutes a favorite dish with the Asiatics of the islands.

1899, Jose de Olivares, Our Islands and Their People as Seen with Camera and Pencil, St. Louis, M.O., New York, N.Y.: Thompson Pub. Co, page 470:

We have all heard of the octopus or devil-fish, with its long arms covered with powerful suckers, which is always waiting to seize the unsuspecting, choke and bite him, always grasping with another arm when the grip of one of them is loosened—suitable symbol of the trust.

1913, Victor Ernest Shelford, Animal Communities in Temperate America, Chicago, I.L.: University of Chicago Press, page 5:

The devilfish felt the menace of his attitude, and his two longest tentacles began to writhe in the air, as he measured our distance.

1922, Frederick O'Brien, Atolls of the Sun, Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart, pages 164–165:

The devilfishes, or octopuses, vary from 2 inches to 28 feet in spread. They have a flexible bulbous body without a shell and eight long sucker-bearing tentacles.

1951, Tracy I. Storer, General Zoology, New York, N.Y., Toronto, ON, London: McGraw Hill, page 435:

This bloody tinge drew the attention of a giant octopus, or "devilfish," who lived in the deep. Rising to the surface, "looking very white" (as a dead tentacle does, though a live octopus does not), it extended a single mammoth tentacle, encircled the fish camp, and swept it into the sea, gorging itself on the people and smashing their canoes.

1999, Jonathan Raban, Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings, New York, N.Y.: Pantheon Books, →ISBN, page 46:

(dated) Any of several not closely related marine animals:


alloposid

(zoology) Any octopus in the monotypic family Alloposidae, which consists only of the seven-arm octopus, Haliphron atlanticus.


bolitaenid

(zoology) Any octopus of the family Bolitaenidae.


amphitretid

(zoology) Any octopus in the family Amphitretidae.


cirroteuthid

(zoology) Any octopus in the family Cirroteuthidae.


octopodid

(zoology) Any octopus in the family Octopodidae.


opisthoteuthid

(zoology) Any octopus in the family Opisthoteuthidae.


tremoctopodid

(zoology) Any blanket octopus in the family Tremoctopodidae.


coconut octopus

coconut octopus (plural coconut octopuses or coconut octopi)

coconut octopuses (plural)
coconut octopi (plural)

From coconut + octopus from the propensity of this octopus to live in coconut shells.

Coconut octopuses can make themselves look like coconuts even without the visual aid, by gathering most of their arms around their body to make a rough sphere.

2017, Danna Staaf, Squid Empire, ForeEdge, →ISBN, page 176:

A tropical species of octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus.


giant octopus

giant octopus (plural giant octopuses or giant octopi)

giant octopuses (plural)
giant octopi (plural)

A mythical or fictional large sea creature with features of an octopus

(informal) Synonym of Kraken (Norse sea monster)

(informal) Synonym of Cthulhu (Lovecraftian horror monster)

One of certain large sea creatures of the order Octopoda

Haliphron atlanticus (giant Atlantic octopus)

giant Pacific octopus
giant Pacific octopus

especially, Enteroctopus dofleini (giant Pacific octopus)


common octopus

common octopus (plural common octopuses or common octopi)

common octopuses (plural)
common octopi (plural)

From common + octopus, being the stereotypical octopus, most commonly thought of form of octopus in English-language media, and most commonly studied octopus in science.

An octopus common to coastal waters worldwide, Octopus vulgaris


giant Pacific octopus

giant Pacific octopus (plural giant Pacific octopuses)

They range from less than an inch in length to the giant Pacific octopus, which weighs in at 100 pounds and spans twenty feet from arm tip to arm tip.

2016, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds, William Collins, published 2018, page 47:

Giant Pacific octopuses are semelparous, meaning they reproduce only once.

2018 April 29, Killian Fox, The Observer:

A large species of octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini.


dumbo octopus

From their resemblance to the title character of the 1941 Disney film Dumbo.

This specimen does not possess tentacles but does have clear fins leading to speculation that it may be related to deep sea species such as today’s dumbo octopuses or alternatively, this is a member of the vampire squid group, Vampyromorphida.

2016 August 17, Mark Carnall, The Guardian:

Any of several species of umbrella octopuses of the genus Grimpoteuthis.


blanket octopus

blanket octopus (plural blanket octopuses)

One species, the Blanket octopus, has the most extreme divergence in size between the two sexes in a single species of any animal: females weigh 10,000 times as much as males.

2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Granta Books, published 2013, page 229:

Blanket octopuses appear to be immune or resistant to Portugese^([sic]) man 'o' war stings and have even been observed wielding the stinging tentacles they’ve detached as a weapon.

2018 March 27, Mark Carnall, The Guardian:

Any of four species of pelagic octopus of the genus Tremoctopus, found in tropical and subtropical oceans.


mimic octopus

The Mimic octopus, which was only discovered in 2005 in shallow Indonesian waters, can rapidly morph its body to resemble a flounder, a sea snake, a lionfish and almost anything else it sees.

An Indo-Pacific species of octopus, Thaumoctopus mimicus, capable of impersonating other species of marine life.


gloomy octopus

gloomy octopus (plural gloomy octopuses)

The Australian octopus Octopus tetricus.


blue-ringed octopus

blue-ringed octopus (plural blue-ringed octopuses or blue-ringed octopodes or blue-ringed octopi)

blue-ringed octopuses (plural)
blue-ringed octopodes (plural)
blue-ringed octopi (plural)

From blue + ring + octopus.
From being an octopus with very prominent bright blue rings all over its body.

Any octopus of the genus Hapalochlaena, with distinctive blue rings, that carry the highly poisonous venom tetrodotoxin (TTX).


larger Pacific striped octopus

larger Pacific striped octopus (plural larger Pacific striped octopuses)

larger Pacific striped octopuses (plural)

Unlike other octopus species, which are normally solitary, the larger Pacific striped octopus has been reported as forming groups of up to 40 individuals.

Also unlike many other octopus, female Larger Pacific striped octopuses don't die after laying their eggs, instead going on to lay again and again.

2017, Rebecca Tansley, Big Pacific, Princeton University Press, page 45:

Supporting this latter view, the recently rediscovered Larger Pacific Striped Octopus exhibits a unique hunting behavior that suggests that these animals might have ToM-like cognitive abilities.

2018, Gül Dölen, “Mind Reading Developed at Least Twice in the Course of Evolution”, in David J. Linden, editor, Think Tank: Forty Neuroscientists Explore the Biological Roots of Human Experience, Yale University Press, page 198:

A species of octopus, endemic to bays and coastal waters of the tropical eastern Pacific, that has a striped body and spotted tentacles, and exhibits certain behaviours that distinguish it from other octopuses.


seven-arm octopus

seven-arm octopus (plural seven-arm octopuses)

Because in male seven-arm octopuses, one of their tentacles is smaller and concealed, and is often overlooked.

Haliphron atlanticus, a species of octopus, notable for its large size.


Turquet's octopus

Turquet's octopus (plural Turquet's octopuses)

In an ingenious approach, a team of 11 scientists – including biologists, geneticists, glaciologists, computer scientists and ice-sheet modellers – looked at the genetics of Turquet’s octopus – a species that has been living around the Antarctic continent for about 4m years.

2023 February 4, Graham Readfearn, The Guardian:

A species of octopus, Pareledone turqueti, which lives in waters around the Antarctic.


wonderpus

A colorfully-patterned octopus, Wonderpus photogenicus, of the Malay Archipelago.


curled octopus

curled octopus (plural curled octopuses or curled octopusses or curled octopi)

curled octopuses (plural)
curled octopusses (plural)
curled octopi (plural)

A common European species of octopus (Eledone cirrhosa) whose tentacles are usually kept curled.