Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A body form of a cnidarian, such as a hydra or coral, that is cylindrical in shape, has a mouth usually surrounded by tentacles at one end, and is often attached to something at the other end.
  • noun A usually nonmalignant growth or tumor protruding from the mucous lining of an organ such as the nose, bladder, or intestine, sometimes causing obstruction.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In zoology, an animal with many feet or foot-like processes,
  • noun In pathology, same as polypus, 2.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One of the feeding or nutritive zooids of a hydroid or coral.
  • noun One of the Anthozoa.
  • noun Same as anthozoa. See anthozoa, madreporaria, hydroid.
  • noun the hydra.
  • noun (Zoöl.) that portion of the stem of a siphonophore which bears the polypites, or feeding zooids.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun medicine an abnormal growth protruding from a mucous membrane
  • noun biology a cylindrical coelenterate, such as the hydra, having a mouth surrounded with tentacles

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a small vascular growth on the surface of a mucous membrane
  • noun one of two forms that coelenterates take (e.g. a hydra or coral): usually sedentary with a hollow cylindrical body usually with a ring of tentacles around the mouth

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English polip, nasal tumor, from Old French polipe, from Latin pōlypus, cuttlefish, nasal tumor, from Greek polupous, poulupous : polu-, poly- + pous, foot; see ped- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin polypus ("a polyp, a polypus in the nose"), from Ancient Greek πολύπους (polupous), from πολύς (polus, "many") + πούς (pous, "foot").

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