Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Polyp
/ˈpɒlɪp/noun
A small tube-shaped sea creature with a ring of tentacles, or a growth projecting from a mucous membrane.
The Greek roots
πολύς
polýs
many
πούς
poús
foot
Literally: “many-footed”
The story of the word
Aristotle used πολύπους for the octopus and the cuttlefish, counting the arms as feet. Greek physicians then borrowed the same word for growths in the nose, which seemed to cling and branch the same way. The Romance words for octopus keep the older sense: Spanish pulpo, French poulpe, Italian polpo.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
octopuspolygonpodiumtripod
In a sentence
The reef looked like stone until the polyps opened at dusk.
A routine screening found two small polyps and the surgeon removed both.