Octopus

Definitions

1. Any 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.
   broadly, countable
2. A mollusc from genus Octopus.
   countable
3. The flesh of these marine molluscs eaten as food.
   uncountable
4. An organization that has many powerful branches controlled from the centre.
   countable
5. An instance of a player scoring a touchdown immediately followed by a successful two-point conversion, resulting in a total score of eight points.
   countable, informal, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“Even octopuses without stylets almost certainly retain⟳ the molecular machinery necessary to build⟳ them.”

“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.”

“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⟳.”

CEFR level