polypus

Noun

polypus (plural polypi or polypuses)

1. A polyp.
   • The nasal passages should be carefully examined for symptoms of stegnosis, enlargement of the turbinated bones, polypi, etc.1898, Werner's magazine, volume 20
2. A cardiac thrombus usually found post-mortem.
3. (obsolete) A tentacled cephalopod, such as an octopus, squid, or cuttlefish.
   • He had been becalmed in the tropical seas, and had watched, in eager expectation, though unhappily always in vain, to see the colossal polypus rise from the water, and entwine its enormous arms round the masts and the rigging.1818, Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, section VII
   • From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
     Unnumbered and enormous polypi
     Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.1830, Alfred Tennyson, “The Kraken”, in Poems, Chiefly Lyrical
4. (archaic) Any of various simple aquatic invertebrates having mouths surrounded by tentacles, including hydrozoa and anthozoa; including the sessile life stages of organisms whose corresponding free-swimming stage is the medusa.