Octopus card
Octopus card noun: a contactless smart card, introduced in 1997, used as a form of payment in Hong Kong, originally for the mass transit system, but now widely used for public transport and other retail transactions.
Noun
Octopus card (plural Octopus cards)
- A contactless smart card, introduced in 1997, used as a form of payment in Hong Kong, originally for the mass transit system, but now widely used for public transport and other retail transactions.
- Bus routes cover every part of the territory. […] Octopus cards or exact change must be paid on entry.2010, Andrew Dembina, Hong Kong Select, Singapore: GeoCenter, →ISBN, page 186
- But when I pressed my Octopus card to the fare machine, it answered with an angry buzz, like I'd answered wrong in a quiz show.2013, Fred Hiatt, Nine Days, New York: Delacorte Press, →ISBN, page 201
Forms of Octopus card
| plural | Octopus cards |
|---|
Origin of Octopus card
Coined in a naming competition. Like its Chinese counterpart 八達通 /八达通 (baat³ daat⁶ tung¹), it references the number eight, as an octopus has eight tentacles.
Questions about Octopus card
- What does Octopus card mean?
- Octopus card means a contactless smart card, introduced in 1997, used as a form of payment in Hong Kong, originally for the mass transit system, but now widely used for public transport and other retail transactions.
- What part of speech is Octopus card?
- Octopus card is a noun.
- What is the plural of Octopus card?
- The plural of Octopus card is Octopus cards.
Words near Octopus card in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Octopus card (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: “Octopus card.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/octopus_card. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.