john cabrera

The Plural Form of Octopus is not Octopi

Sorry, it’s just not. It’s Octopuses.

In Latin, when a word ends in ‘us’ its plural form is often ‘i’.

An example of this is Cactus… whose plural is Cacti. Or Fungus whose plural is Fungi.

However…

Octopus is not a Latin word. It’s originally from the Ancient Greek word Oktopous, and so technically it’s plural form is Oktopodes. But no one uses this, since Octopus has long been an accepted English word, pluralized with ‘es’ (the modern Greek word is something totally different.)

If it had been a Latin word, it would have been Octopes and therefore pluralize Octopedes… like Centipedes.

It’s also Platapuses, Hippopotomuses… and although these next five are derived from Latin, it’s Viruses, Bonuses, Anuses, Campuses, and Statuses.

This isn’t a pet peve of mine… just some useless info to help you sound like a total language snob when people get it wrong.