Octopus came into English with the help of the scientific Latin name octopus, derived from the Byzantine Greek name for the animal ( oktōpous) and thereby the ancient Greek adjective oktōpous (“eight-footed”). It seems appropriate, then, that the word octopus is itself a confusing and shape-shifting thing. It can also change shape and even colour dramatically. It can evade predators by emitting clouds of ink. The octopus is a slippery animal, in every sense of the word. This Word Stories instalment looks at what can happen when this profusion of Greek and Latin roots gets tangled up in English, for example in the popular temptation to use Latin endings for words that look Latin, like octopus. Greek and Latin have shaped about half the words English speakers use today, including almost all of our technical and scientific terminology. It’s been a long time since English-speaking children learned Greek and Latin in school, but the effects of traditional “Western” classical education are still all around us. “ rhinoceros”, in Charlton T.Modern English is the result of a grand linguistic experiment in creative packaging, in that the roots of its grammar are characteristically Germanic, but its vocabulary is dominated by the classical heritage of Greece and Rome.Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press rhinoceros in Karl Ernst Georges, Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch.A nickname for someone with a long nose.Rhīnocerōs m ( genitive rhīnocerōtis) third declension ( Ecclesiastical ) IPA ( key): /riˈno.t͡ʃe.ros/,.

( Classical ) IPA ( key): /riːˈno.ke.roːs/,.

Zulu: ubhejane (zu) 1a or 2a ( black ), umkhombo (zu) 3 or 4 ( white ), umduzu 3 or 4 ( white )įrom Ancient Greek ῥινόκερως ( rhinókerōs ).

Lower Sorbian: nosorogak m Upper Sorbian: nosorohač m

Middle Persian: ( klg /karg/ )īokmål: neshorn (no) n Nynorsk: nashorn n, nashyrning m.

Malay: badak sumbu, badak raya, badak gajah, badak (ms).

Japanese: 犀 (ja) ( さい, sai ), サイ (ja) ( sai )Ĭentral Kurdish: کەرگەدەن‎ (ku) ( kergeden ) Northern Kurdish: kergeden (ku).

Hungarian: rinocérosz (hu), orrszarvú (hu).German: Nashorn (de) n, Rhinozeros (de) n ( formal ).

Plural of rhinoceros