There is the polypus, declined πολύπους, πολύποδος; at least this is the way the Attic writers use the word, and so does Homer:—
As when a polypus (πουλύποδος in the genitive) is dragged from out his lair:[p. 497] keeping the analogy to the noun ποὺς, from which it is de- rived. But in the accusative case we find the form πολύπουν, just as we ᾿αλκίνουν and οἰδίπουν. Aeschylus, too, has the form τρίπουν, as an epithet of a caldron, in his Athamas, from ποὺς, as if it were a simple noun like νοῦς. But the form πώλυπος is Aeolic. For the Attics always say πολύπους. Aristophanes, in his Dædalus, says—
When then I had this polypus (πουλύπους) and cuttle-fish.And in another place he says—
He put before me a polypus (πουλύπουν).And in another place he has—
They are the blows of a polypus press'd tight.And Alcæus says, in his Adulterous Sisters,—
The man's a fool and has the mind of a polypus (πουλύποδος).But Ameipsias, in his Glutton, says—
I want, it seems, a heap of polypi (πουλύπων).And Plato, in his Boy, writes—
First of all you like the polypodes (τοὺς πουλύποδας).Alcæus in another passage says—
I myself eat like any polypus (πουλύπους).But others use the accusative case πολύποδα, in strict analogy with ποὺς, ποδὸς, ποδὶ, πόδα. Eupolis, in his Demi, has—
The man's a fellow-citizen of mine,
A very polypus in disposition.
