polypus

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin polypus, from Ancient Greek πολύπους (polúpous). Doublet of polyp.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

polypus (plural polypi or polypuses)

  1. A medical phenomenon.
    1. (medicine) A polyp. [from 14th c.]
      • 1898, Werner's magazine, volume 20:
        The nasal passages should be carefully examined for symptoms of stegnosis, enlargement of the turbinated bones, polypi, etc.
    2. (hematology, pathology) A cardiac thrombus usually found post-mortem. [from 17th c.]
  2. An aquatic creature.
    1. (obsolete) A tentacled cephalopod, such as an octopus, squid, or cuttlefish. [16th–19th c.]
      • 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.
    2. (now rare) Any of various simple aquatic invertebrates having mouths surrounded by tentacles, including hydrozoa and anthozoa. [from 18th c.]

Latin[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Ancient Greek πολύπους (polúpous) (or from Doric Ancient Greek πώλυπος (pṓlupos) for the variant with long ō).

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

pō̆lypus m (genitive pō̆lypī); second declension

  1. octopus
  2. cuttlefish
  3. nasal tumor

Usage notes[edit]

  • 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[edit]

Second-declension noun.

Case Singular Plural
Nominative pō̆lypus pō̆lypī
Genitive pō̆lypī pō̆lypōrum
Dative pō̆lypō pō̆lypīs
Accusative pō̆lypum pō̆lypōs
Ablative pō̆lypō pō̆lypīs
Vocative pō̆lype pō̆lypī

Descendants[edit]

References[edit]

  • “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.
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