octopusses

English

Noun

octopusses

1. (nonstandard) plural of octopus
   • 1956, Richard Rodgers, Oscar, II Hammerstein, Pipe Dream, page 38:

     Can you imagine that Doc living all by himself here, with snakes and starfish and octopusses?

   • 1978, Diver, volume 23, page 150:

     Gilpatric observed many fights between octopusses. When one is badly damaged, another will often appear in search of an easy meal.

   • 1985 [1984], The Beauty of Doing Mathematics: Three Public Dialogues, Springer Science+Business Media, translation of Fait des Maths en Public by Lang, Serge, →ISBN, page 103:

     Of course, the next time you are on the beach, you can try it out [Laughter], take the legs of an octopus, and you can even knot them before you glue them together. / In order to classify octopusses, we must therefore classify the irreducible ones, and then we must classify the way you can add them together, as I did just now by cutting and glueing their legs.

   • 1992, Greg Mandel, High Hat, KenArnoldBooks, LLC, published 2008, →ISBN, page 74:

     “Angel.” I lift her chin. “What happened to the Captain?” / She opens her mouth to speak but all that comes out is a single word, which she gasps as if it is her last, dying breath. / “Octopusses!” She chokes, and spits the word out again. “Octopusses!”

Verb

octopusses

1. third-person singular simple present indicative of octopus