opossum

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (7)  · 
Throughout the animal kingdom generally, indeed, this correspondence, or rather this chain of causation, makes itself everywhere felt; no high intelligence without a highly developed prehensile and grasping organ Perhaps the opossum is the very best and most crucial instance that could possibly be adduced of the intimate connection which exists between touch and intellect.

View all »
Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun Any of various nocturnal, usually arboreal marsupials of the family Didelphidae, especially Didelphis marsupialis of the Western Hemisphere, having a thick coat of hair, a long snout, and a long prehensile tail. See Regional Note at possum.
  2. noun Any of several similar marsupials of Australia belonging to the family Phalangeridae.
  3. Word History
    The word opossum takes us back to the earliest days of the American colonies. The settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, was founded in 1607 by the London Company, chartered for the planting of colonies. Even though the first years were difficult, promotional literature was glowing. In one such piece, A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonie in Virginia, published in 1610, we find this passage: "There are ... Apossouns, in shape like to pigges.” This is the first recorded use of opossum, although in a spelling that differs from the one later settled on to reproduce the sound of the Virginia Algonquian word from which our word came. The word opossum and its shortened form possum, first recorded in 1613 in more promotional literature, remind us of a time when the New World was still very new, settlers were few, and the inhabitants for whom the New World was not new were plentiful.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples

  • Throughout the animal kingdom generally, indeed, this correspondence, or rather this chain of causation, makes itself everywhere felt; no high intelligence without a highly developed prehensile and grasping organ Perhaps the opossum is the very best and most crucial instance that could possibly be adduced of the intimate connection which exists between touch and intellect. —  Science in Arcady
  • For the opossum is a marsupial; it belongs to the same group of lowly-organized, antiquated, and pouch-bearing animals as the kangaroo, the wombat, and the other belated Australian mammals. —  Science in Arcady
  • The other opossum is the black and white Didelphys azarae; and it is indeed strange to find this animal on the pampas, although its presence there is not so mysterious as that of the tuco-tuco. —  The Naturalist in La Plata
  • In the fierce struggle for life of the crowded American lowlands, the opossum was absolutely forced to acquire a certain amount of Yankee smartness, or else to be improved off the face of the earth by the keen competition of the pouchless mammals Up to the day, then, when Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks, landing for the first time on the coast of New South Wales, saw an animal with short front limbs, huge hind legs, a monstrous tail, and a curious habit of hopping along the ground (called by the natives a kangaroo), the opossums of America were the only pouched mammals known to the European world in any part of the explored continents. —  Falling in Love With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science
  • In the fierce struggle for life of the crowded American lowlands, the opossum was absolutely forced to acquire a certain amount of Yankee smartness, or else to be improved off the face of the earth by the keen competition of the pouchless mammals. —  Falling in Love With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Words tagged opossum

Rhyncholestes

Stats

Opossum has been looked up 313 times, favorited 0 times, listed 10 times, and commented on 7 times.

On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Virginia Algonquian.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Formerly also opassom; also, and still in rural use, abbreviation possum, formerly possowne; American Indian
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

/əˈpɑsəm/
by American Heritage

Charts

frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word a few times a year.

Recent Lookups

gammy · rode · intuitive · homophobic · succession

Recent Favorites

pinchbeck · bunny · headness · amorous · eldritch

Recent Pronunciations

milosrdenstvi · lichen-covered · futon · sagacity · monoragngocious