octopus

American  

[ok-tuh-puhs] / ˈɒk tə pəs /

noun

octopuses, plural octopi plural

1. any octopod of the genus Octopus, having a soft, oval body and eight sucker-bearing arms, living mostly at the bottom of the sea.

2. something likened to an octopus, as an organization with many forms of far-reaching influence or control.

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octopus British  

/ ˈɒktəpəs /

noun

1. 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)

2. a powerful influential organization with far-reaching effects, esp harmful ones

3. another name for spider

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• octopi
  plural
• octopuses
  plural

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."

Example Sentences

Cool-adapted species such as cod are generally moving further north, while numbers of some warm-water species such as octopus have risen around south-west England.

From BBC • Jul. 7, 2026

Increasing numbers of octopus may offer a new market for fishermen, for example, but can hit populations of crabs, lobster, scallops and other shellfish on which they prey.

From BBC • Jul. 7, 2026

Long periods of sea heat can trigger mass die-offs among some seagrasses, shellfish and other species, as well as encouraging greater numbers of warm-water creatures including octopus.

From BBC • Jul. 7, 2026

One famous example was Inky, the octopus that escaped from New Zealand's National Aquarium in 2016 by squeezing through a drainpipe and making its way back to the ocean.

From Science Daily • Jun. 5, 2026

Or maybe I needed to be an octopus, because there is no way anyone without eight arms can do all the stuff the girl in the video was doing.

From "From Twinkle, with Love" by Sandhya Menon

Related Words

• business
• company
• enterprise