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polypus. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
polypus, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
polypus in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
From Latin polypus, from Ancient Greek πολύπους (polúpous). Doublet of polyp.
Pronunciation
Noun
polypus (plural polypi or polypuses)
- A medical phenomenon.
- (medicine) A polyp.
1898, Werner's magazine, volume 20:The nasal passages should be carefully examined for symptoms of stegnosis, enlargement of the turbinated bones, polypi, etc.
- (hematology, pathology) A cardiac thrombus usually found post-mortem.
- An aquatic creature.
- (obsolete) A tentacled cephalopod, such as an octopus, squid, or cuttlefish.
1818, Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, section VII: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.
1830, Alfred Tennyson, “The Kraken”, in Poems, Chiefly Lyrical:From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
- (now rare) Any of various simple aquatic invertebrates having mouths surrounded by tentacles, including hydrozoa and anthozoa.
Latin
Etymology
From Ancient Greek πολύπους (polúpous) (or from Doric Ancient Greek πώλυπος (pṓlupos) for the variant with long ō).
Pronunciation
Noun
pō̆lypus m (genitive pō̆lypī); second declension
- octopus
- cuttlefish
- nasal tumor
Usage notes
- A variant with long ō is found occasionally in Ovid and Horace, perhaps to make the meter scan more easily; this variant has its origin in the Doric Greek form of the noun.
Declension
Second-declension noun.
Descendants
- Italo-Romance:
- North Italian:
- Gallo-Romance:
- Ibero-Romance:
- Insular Romance:
- Borrowings:
References
- “polypus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “polypus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- polypus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
- polypus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.