100. 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:

[[497]] keeping the analogy to the noun ποὺς, from which it is derived. But in the accusative case we find the form πολύπουν, just as we find Ἀλκίνουν and Οἰδίπουν. Æschylus, 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 Æolic. 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).