Putto Today, in Italian, "putto" means either toddler winged angel or, rarely, toddler boy. It may have been derived from the same Indo-European root as the Sanskrit word "putra" (meaning "boy child", as opposed to "son"), Avestan "puθra"-, Old Persian "puça"-, Pahlavi (Middle Persian) "pus" and "pusar", all meaning "son", and the New Persian "pesar" "boy, son". Putti, in the ancient classical world of art, were winged infants that were believed to influence human lives. In Renaissance art, the form of the putto was derived in various ways including the Greek Eros or Roman Amor/Cupid, the god of love and companion
Plural form of words ending in -us etymologically Greek despite its Latinized ending, and so pluralizing it as if it were Latin (i.e. as "platypi") is ill-considered. As with "octopus", importing Greek morphology into English would have "platypodes" as the plural, but in practice this form is hardly attested outside of discussions about pluralization. In scientific contexts, biologists often use "platypus" as both the singular and plural form of the word, in the tradition of "sheep" or "fish", but laypersons and scientists alike often use the simple English plural "platypuses". Different dictionaries make different recommendations. As a word in Botanical Latin (as distinct from Classical Latin), "cactus"