Polyp

Polyp, a name usually applied to an animal like the fresh-water Hydra or like the Sea-anemone, having a tubular body and a wreath of many tentacles around the mouth. The name is equally applicable to an isolated individual or to a member (zooid or 'person') of a colony. Thus, the individuals which make up a zoophyte or a coral colony are called polyps, and the term is seldom used except in reference to Cœlenterate animals. But the history of the word has been strange. In Greek and Latin works on natural history the term polypous or polypus is usually applied to the octopus (poulpe), or some other cuttle-fish, though sometimes to the many-footed wood-louse, Oniscus. Réaumur and Jussieu were the first to apply the word to zoophytes and the like; Lamarec used it more loosely, but gradually it has been narrowed to the signification above noted. See ANEMONE, CœLENTERATA, CORAL, HYDRA, HYDROZOA, &c.; and POLYPUS, for the surgical use of the term.