octopusian

English

Adjective

octopusian (comparative more octopusian, superlative most octopusian)

1. Octopuslike.
   • 1900, Marketing Communications, page 74:

     And when a concern of such octopusian proportions as the American Bicycle Co. makes so many varying statements about its product it would seem that the thing to do would be to shut one's eyes and take the first bicycle that came along.

   • 1905, Benjamin Brace, Sunrise Acres, page 98:

     […] point out where the government at Washington had made the most glaring mistakes, and where, if he had been able to impress his opinions upon the minds of the national legislators, the “octopusian” trusts would be working […]

   • 1954, Pennsylvania state reports:

     […] and most important of all, it knew that the Federal Government, even if it were willing, had demonstrated that it was unable alone to cope with this hidden octopusian menace to our Country.

   • 1960, United States Congress Joint Committee on Washington Metropolitan Problems, National Capital Transportation Act of 1960: Hearings ... Eighty-sixth Congress, Second Session, on S. 3193 and H.R. 11135. May 5 and 6, 1960, page 135:

     Is it worth the disruption and disfigurement of the central area that express highways appear to bring with them? Do we want a Capital City decorated with such octopusian excrescenses as the proposed interchange at the east end of the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge?

   • 1966, House Judiciary Committee, Interstate Taxation Act: Hearings Before the Special Subcommittee on State Taxation of Interstate Commerce, United States, page 949:

     No one requires a corporation to spread-eagle the entire country in an octopusian manipulation unless the corporation wishes to do so for purposes of increased profits.

   • 1972, Fred E. H. Schroeder, Joining the Human Race: how to Teach the Humanities:

     Furthermore, breadth of interest and training is not always coupled with organizational ability, and any interdisciplinary program is a slippery creature to hold onto, exasperatingly octopusian in its direction. Octopus or not, a true humanities  […]

   • 1999, Social Sciences Research Journal:

     ... as has been done in various countries which have carried out disinvestment programmes like France, Malaysia, Singapore and Philippines and as originally proposed in India in order to take it out of the octopusian grip of the bureaucracy.

Synonyms

• see list in octopuslike