People are up in arms about it. While the plural for the word is octopuses some believe that the term comes from Latin and so formulate its plural as octopi.
Octopus Wiktionary
It was originally a Greek word oktopous and it kept its Greek endings when it was Latinized making its plural octopodes.
Is octopuses a word. USAGE The standard English plural of octopus is octopuses. The standard plural in English of octopus is octopuses according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Octopuses is the standard plural form of octopus.
Octopi is a common mistake. The term octopus is derived from the ancient Greek word that means eight legs. Lastly octopodes stems from the belief that because octopus is originally Greek it should have a Greek ending.
Is it octopuses or octopi. A lost arm is regenerated. Grammatically speaking the plural for octopus is octopuses.
Therefore octopi is simply a misspelled form for the plural of octopus. 11When attacked by predators octopuses can detach their arms. How to use octopus in a sentence.
As a word that comes from Greek it follows Greek rules for plurals. Any octopod excepting the paper nautilus. However the word octopus comes from Greek and the Greek plural form is octopodes äktäp.
Learn to win at any game with our many tools and word lists. Octopuses is the next plural which gives the word an English ending to match its adoption as an English word. Whether you write octopi on Reddit say octopodes on a podcast or text octopuses to your friends someone is going to correct you.
As the Merriam-Webster dictionary points out people use three different terms however. More exactly the word octopus which defines a sea creature with eight long arms doesnt even originate from Latin but from Greek. In other words octopuses smell with their arms.
These may be acceptable in some dictionaries but octopuses is always correct. Some writers use octopi to refer to more than one octopus. In this case the word octopus is a loanword from Greek.
Not all octopuses have long arms. Octopus definition is - any of a genus Octopus of cephalopod mollusks that have eight muscular arms equipped with two rows of suckers. All of that is beside the point though as octopus has been in English for centuries and is now an English word when English speakers use it so there is no reason not to pluralize it in the English manner.
Irregular octopus plurals include octopi and octopodes. Octopi follows Latin rules for making words plural but octopodes follows Greek pluralization rules. The word octopi which follows Latin rules for plurals is incorrect.
Octopus is a loanword which means it is a word borrowed from another language. The correct plural of octopus is octopuses. A Scrabble Dictionary Scrabble Word Finder Scrabble Cheat to help you with many word based games and apps.
The plural form of octopus is the animal version of there their theyre. Granted some Latin and Greek plurals survive in English by convention but octopi octopodes is not one of them. The amputated arm grows back in a.
In fact when I spell checked this answer the word octopi was highlighted for misspelling the word octopuses. An octopus is a type of animal. Octopus though is not a member of this group.
Kraken Octopus in Nordic Culture Stories about sea monsters are common in Norse mythologies and one of them is the kraken. Dictionaries now show both octopuses and octopi as the plural for octopus. Modern usage of octopodes is so infrequent that many people mistakenly create the erroneous plural form octopi formed according to rules for Latin plurals.
