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

See Examples For:

octopus octopi octopuses

Phishing scams are like an octopus: They have many sticky tentacles.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 14, 2026

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

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

For the experiment, each octopus was placed inside a start box that was open at the front and top.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 5, 2026

Supreme Court ordered Duke to carve up his tobacco octopus, but the resourceful businessman had already diversified into textiles and electric power generation.

From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson

That outer shell is built largely from chitin, a tough natural material also found in fungal cell walls, fish scales, and the beaks of squids and octopi.

From Science Daily ● May 9, 2026

Jewish people were sometimes depicted as octopi in Nazi posters during World War Two.

From BBC ● Mar. 6, 2024

“Some people were turned off by the violence or the octopi scene and felt ‘Oldboy’ was too much of a genre film for competition,” he says.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2023

As another example, the team, in partnership with the Department of Natural Resources is experimenting with octopots — small ceramic pot homes that may attract octopi, the kelp crab’s natural predator.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 8, 2023

Fish and octopi darted in and out of the windows.

From "The Last Olympian" by Rick Riordan

Perhaps the most impressive discoveries are animal “cities,” including two assemblies of octopuses, dubbed Octopolis and Octlantis, found off the east coast of Australia.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026

Although the octopuses did not always choose the shortest path, they became faster at reaching the correct location as the trials progressed.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 5, 2026

For the tiny blue octopus, the scans provided clear views of internal organs and mouth structures, allowing scientists to officially classify it as a new species and better understand its relationship to other octopuses.

From Science Daily ● May 25, 2026

Scientists now believe that the earliest octopuses were not quiet, elusive creatures but massive predators that hunted at the very top of the marine food chain alongside large vertebrates.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 25, 2026

Cressie crocheted four eight-legged octopuses out of various colors of yarn to sit on the bed.

From "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd

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