Word.ws English Dictionary

octans

octans is the plural of octan.

Meaning of octan

Noun

octan (plural octans)

  1. A fever that recurs every eight days.

See all 2 meanings of octan

Proper noun capitalized: Octans

Octans

  1. A small circumpolar constellation of the southern sky, said to resemble an octant. It lies closest to the southern celestial pole of any constellation.

Origin of octans

Named by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1763. From Latin octans (“an octant”). Doublet of octant.

Words formed from octans

  • Octantis

Questions about octans

What does octans mean?
Octans means a small circumpolar constellation of the southern sky, said to resemble an octant. It lies closest to the southern celestial pole of any constellation.
What is octans the plural of?
Octans is the plural of octan.
What part of speech is octans?
Octans is a proper noun.

Words near octans in the dictionary

  1. octanoylation
  2. octanoylcarnitine
  3. octanoyls
  4. octanoyltransferase
  5. octanoyltransferases
  6. octans
  7. octant
  8. octantal
  9. octantimonide
  10. octants
  11. octanucleate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: octans (page history and authors); Octans (page history and authors); octan (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “octans.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/octans. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.