OCTOPUS • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Octopus

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/ˈɑktəpˌʊs/ Listen

noun

Octopus n.

(Zool.) A genus of eight-armed cephalopods, including numerous species, some of them of large size. See Devilfish.

(Zool.) Any member of the genus Octopus.

(Fig.) Something resembling an octopus in having numerous controlling arms or branches that reach widely and influence many activities; used mostly of organizations, such as diversified corporations.

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Etymology of 'Octopus'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Octopus" Quotes from Famous Books

... no heart; he is a machine!" said young Denton. "He is simply a human octopus for pulling in money. Not that I object to money," he added, with a laugh, "but I hate to see men make it through such ...

— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon

... of Chicago he is pretty apt to hear of Yerkes. Yerkes owns all of the north side street railways and is a dictator in a dozen enormous enterprises. It is the fashion to regard Yerkes as an octopus who has Chicago grasped in his strangling arms. It is the custom to hurl abuse at Yerkes and hold Yerkes responsible for all the many ills of the city. In the popular mind Yerkes is the Chicago exemplar of the grasping, soulless, blood-sucking monopolist. This is because the newspaper trust ...

— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... a devil-fish," proclaimed Ben, who had joined the group as the monster vanished, "some calls 'em octopus, but devil-fish is a better word, ...

— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... a sense of the prodigious length and breadth of the contest, by the fact, at last patent to the most unthinking, that the war is an octopus which has wound its tentacles about every limb and every organ of the vitality of France. A revelation of the overwhelming violence of enormous masses of men has broken down the tradition of chivalry. War is now accepted with a sort of indifference, as a part of the day's work; ...

— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse

... out upon the trail of the Octopus as soon as the war was over. He had gone into business, and found himself in competition with the fortunes of those who had been stealing while he had been fighting. The city government was in their hands and the railroads were in league with them, and honest business was driven to the wall; and ...

— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

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