Octopus Meaning
/ˈɒktəpʊs/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAny 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.
nounA mollusc from genus Octopus.
Sentence Examples
The octopus is in the sea.
That octopus returned to the sea without being eaten.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ used its eight tentacles to open the jar and get the food.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ used its eight arms to pry open the clamshell and extract the soft creature inside.
Word Origin & History
From Latin octōpūs, from Ancient Greek ὀκτώπους (oktṓpous), from ὀκτώ (oktṓ, “eight”) + πούς (poús, “foot”). Piecewise doublet of octopod and octopede.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Even octopuses without stylets almost certainly retain the molecular machinery necessary to build them."
— 2017, Danna Staaf, Squid Empire, ForeEdge, →ISBN, page 120:
"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."
— 2017 August 9, Mark Carnall, “Why do cephalopods produce ink? And what's ink made of, anyway?”, in The Guardian:
"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."
— 2022, Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea, Picador, page 67:
"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!:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ used its eight tentacles to open the jar and get the food.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ used its eight arms to pry open the clamshell and extract the soft creature inside.