Octopi and platypi masquerade as Latin plurals on the false premise that the names are masculine Latin nouns of the second declension, and they are no such thing.

Octopuses and platypuses would be correct. Which one is correct octopus or platypus? The -us at the end is not analogous to the -us in fungus rather it is part of the suffix -pus which is a Latinization of Greek ποῦς, foot. Octopuses is the next plural, which gives the word an English ending to match its adoption as an English word. Octopi is the oldest plural of octopus, coming from the belief that Latin origins should have Latin endings. The three main plurals for octopus come from the different ways the English language adopts plurals. What is plural for rhinoceros? What is the plural of octopus? Ostrich Definitions and Synonyms singular What is the correct plural of rhinoceros? Pelican Definitions and Synonyms singular Like most other nouns that end in –s, it takes –es to form the plural. But octopus is derived from Greek, so the proper pluralization in this case would be “odes” if it was ever used.Īnswer. The letter “i” as a suffix to indicate a plural noun only applies to words with Latin roots, like “cacti” for more than one cactus. While “octopi” has become popular in modern usage, it’s wrong. Some English speakers use platypi as the plural for platypus, but that is far less common than platypuses.

Plural of platypus oxford dictionary