poulpe (French)
Where does "poulpe" come from?
French poulpe was ultimately borrowed from Latin polypūs, which itself came from Ancient Greek polúpous (πολύπους). In Greek, the word literally meant “many-footed,” from polu- “many” + pous “foot,” a vivid name for an octopus. French keeps that ancient sea-creature word, and it is a doublet of polype and pieuvre.
Ancestors
- polypus (Latin)
Cognates and doublets
- pieuvre (French)
- polype (French)
Updated March 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris