octopusses

Gilpatric observed many fights between octopusses. When one is badly damaged, another will often appear in search of an easy meal.

1978, Diver, volume 23, page 150

Of course, the next time you are on the beach, you can try it out [Laughter], take the legs of an octopus, and you can even knot them before you glue them together. / In order to classify octopusses, we must therefore classify the irreducible ones, and then we must classify the way you can add them together, as I did just now by cutting and glueing their legs.

1985 [1984], The Beauty of Doing Mathematics: Three Public Dialogues, Springer Science+Business Media, translation of Fait des Maths en Public by Lang, Serge, →ISBN, page 103

“Angel.” I lift her chin. “What happened to the Captain?” / She opens her mouth to speak but all that comes out is a single word, which she gasps as if it is her last, dying breath. / “Octopusses!” She chokes, and spits the word out again. “Octopusses!”

1992, Greg Mandel, High Hat, KenArnoldBooks, LLC, published 2008, →ISBN, page 74