Octopus card

English Etymology Coined in a naming competition. Like its zh - counterpart yue 八達通, it references the number eight, as an octopus has eight tentacles. Noun Octopus card A contactless smart card, introduced in 1997, used as a form of payment in Hong Kong, originally for the mass transit system, but now widely used for public transport and other retail transactions. en 2010 Andrew Dembina Hong Kong Select Singapore GeoCenter 978-981-282-274-1 186 https://archive.org/details/hongkongselect0000demb/page/186/mode/1up Bus routes cover every part of the territory. Octopus cards or exact change must be paid on entry. en 2013 Fred Hiatt Nine Days New York Delacorte Press 978-0-385-74273-3 201 https://books.google.com/books?id=kXWGEXt1Bf4C&pg=PA201 But when I pressed my Octopus card to the fare machine, it answered with an angry buzz, like I'd answered wrong in a quiz show. en 2022 Tom McDonald; Holy Hoi Ki Shum; Kwok Cheung Wong Mediated Money and Social Relationships Among Hong Kong Cross-Boundary Students Elisabetta Costa; Patricia G. Lange; Nell Haynes; Jolynna Sinanan The Routledge Companion to Media Anthropology 9781003175605 Abingdon Routledge Man Yee 310 10.4324/9781003175605-30 Normally speaking, on a Monday my Octopus card will have HK$500–600 ($64–77 USD) stored inside, by Friday there will be very little left. Translations contactless smart card used in Hong Kong Chinese: Cantonese: yue 八達通 Mandarin: cmn 八達通