octopus
Americannoun
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any octopod of the genus Octopus, having a soft, oval body and eight sucker-bearing arms, living mostly at the bottom of the sea.
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something likened to an octopus, as an organization with many forms of far-reaching influence or control.
noun
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any cephalopod mollusc of the genera Octopus, Eledone, etc, having a soft oval body with eight long suckered tentacles and occurring at the sea bottom: order Octopoda (octopods)
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a powerful influential organization with far-reaching effects, esp harmful ones
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another name for spider
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of octopus
1750–60; < New Latin < Greek oktṓpous (plural oktṓpodes ) eight-footed; see octo-, -pod
Explanation
An octopus is an eight-legged sea creature. Octopuses are intelligent animals, and have been shown to have great capacity for learning. (However, that doesn't stop people from grilling and eating them.) An octopus is a mollusk, which means it's a distant relation of slugs, snails, clams, and mussels. It's also a cephalopod, an animal with a large head and tentacles or arms. Of the other animals in these categories, octopuses are by far the smartest, and they're also incredibly flexible because of their lack of a skeleton or hard shell, which makes them able to squeeze through tiny spaces. The Greek root, oktopous, means "eight-foot."
Vocabulary lists containing octopus
Marine Biology - Introductory
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Marine Biology - Middle School
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Marine Biology - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This fortune-telling exercise follows in the footsteps of South Africa's unforgettable Paul the Octopus in 2010.
From Barron's • Jun. 6, 2026
“People We Meet on Vacation” “Six years after ‘My Octopus Teacher,’ we find there’s still much to learn from eight-limbed marine mollusks in ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures.’
From Los Angeles Times • May 21, 2026
Hannah McCarthy, head of partnerships for new homes at Octopus Energy, told the BBC: "Decarbonising the new housing stock is a fantastic step - batteries would take that a step further."
From BBC • Mar. 23, 2026
Greg Jackson, the chief executive of Octopus - the biggest retail energy supplier in Britain and the biggest vendor of heat pumps too - is enthusiastic about the technology.
From BBC • Mar. 22, 2026
I have a secret: I wish I was Dumbo the Octopus.
From "It’s Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
