The name Italians give to that mysterious underwater creature with eight legs is polpo. This term is used for both the living creature and the dish.
Polpo is a masculine noun, and the plural is polpi.
il polpo
un polpo
i polpi
dei polpi
The octopus is a sea dwelling cephalopod known for being territorial, solitary and nocturnal. Each of its eight tentacles are equipped with suction cups that help it catch its prey.
Il polpo ha otto tentacoli con ventose.
The octopus has eight tentacles with suction cups.
In everyday usage, Italians often refer to octopuses as polipi (masculine, singular: polipo) but polpi and polipi are actually two very different creatures in purely zoological terms. The word polipo actually refers to the cnidaria phylum of animals that includes corals, jellyfish and sea anemones. Unlike the octopus, they lack a head, eyes and arms.
Another possible synonym for polpo in Italian is piovra, which is the name assigned to the Common Octopus.
Interestingly, there are two figurative meanings for piovra. The first is a greedy and unscrupulous person who lives by ruthlessly exploiting other people, and the second is a criminal organisation whose power and influence extend into political, social and economic spheres. La Piovra is also the title of a famous Italian TV series about organised crime.
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
