octopoid
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Forms: form: more octopoid
form: most octopoid
Etymology: From octopus + -oid.
Senses: examples: text: Moving about in experiment or sitting motionless in study were scores of the most hideous Martians they had yet seen—octopoid creature with enormous staring eyes and eight black tentacles.
ref: 1956, Amazing Stories:
text: It is also touchingly absurd; its plan even is delightful and absurd in its informality: the Inner Circle, geometrically perfect, half-embraced by the faintly octopoid arms of the lake - both contained lop-sided in the arbitrary perimeter of the ...
ref: 2000, David Piper, Fionnuala Jervis, The Companion Guide to London, Companion Guides, →ISBN, page 239:
text: Barrymore dramatised his own duality by means of a watercolour self-portrait, depicting the so-called 'Great Profile' fused with a hideous, octopoid spider. […]
ref: 2007, Jonathan Rigby, American Gothic: Sixty Years of Horror Cinema, page 25:
text: An apish creature shambled with octopoid tentacles upon its shoulders; a human shape bore spider arms. Many of the depraved recombinations were incapable of erect ambulation, having blindly conjoined with limbs of too great disparity […]
ref: 2014, Karl Edward Wagner, Bloodstone, Gateway, →ISBN:
glosses: Of, pertaining to, or resembling an octopus or octopod; octopuslike.
examples: text: Further, monopoly is in the octopoid industries the only sensible method of supply, and in many others it brings economies in production, and improvements in the quality and stability of supply, of which it would be a back-handed kindness to deprive the consumer.
ref: 1923, Sir Dennis Holme Robertson, The Control of Industry, page 113:
text: The fourth convenient grouping of media are the octopoid media of the twentieth century: those whereby the spoken word or pictures can be both reproduced and amplified electronically, thus reaching mass audiences very rapidly and with at least great physical authenticity.
ref: 1977, Oliver Thomson, Mass Persuasion in History, page 15:
text: This is how an octopoid 'controlled economy' generates a proliferating 'black economy'.
ref: 1989, Arun Bose, India's social crisis: an essay on capitalism, socialism, individualism and Indian civilization, Oxford University Press, USA:
text: A central bank may be regarded as a highly specialized autonomous bureau for monitoring and developing the financial system which is akin to "octopoid," that is, spatially spread, public utility selling prized services to its customers.
ref: 1991, Mr. Patrick Downes, Reza Vaez-Zadeh, The Evolving Role of Central Banks, page 16:
text: It is a characteristic of certain industries providing essential services either that the basic size of plant is very large inrelation to the market (gas, electricity), or that an elaborate 'octopoid' system of distribution (by piping, cabling, wiring, railway lines, etc.) involves extremely heavy capital costs.
ref: 2013, Anthony Crosland, The Future of Socialism: The Book That Changed British Politics:
glosses: Widespread; reaching across or penetrating large distances; controlling many things from a central point.
Synonyms: list in octopuslike
Related terms: octopoidal