possum

possum
   The Australian entertainer Barry Humphries, in his role as Dame Edna, is tending to make this term his trademark in the late 1980s, using it to address the guests who appear on his television shows.
   Asked to explain it by Zsa Zsa Gabor he said that it was ‘Australian for darling’. It is in fact a short form of ‘opossum’, which in turn is applied to several marsupial mammals found in Australia. They can vary in size, the smallest being mouselike, the largest similar to cats. Opossums are also found in the USA, especially in the eastern states, and once again ‘possum’ is the normal colloquial form of the word.
   ‘Possum’ is occasionally used as an endearment, an example occurring in The Critic, by Wilfrid Sheed: ‘It’s all in your head, possum.’ The speaker is a man, and the remark is addressed to the woman with whom he is living.

A dictionary of epithets and terms of address . . 2015.

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  • Possum — Pos sum, n. [Shortened from opossum.] (Zo[ o]l.) An opossum. [Colloq. U. S.] [1913 Webster] {To play possum}, {To act possum}, to feign ignorance, indifference or inattention, with the intent to deceive; to dissemble; in allusion to the habit of… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • possum — ► NOUN 1) a tree dwelling Australasian marsupial. 2) N. Amer. informal an opossum. ● play possum Cf. ↑play possum ORIGIN shortening of OPOSSUM(Cf. ↑opossum) …   English terms dictionary

  • possum — 1610s, shortened form of OPOSSUM (Cf. opossum). Phrase play possum is first recorded 1822 …   Etymology dictionary

  • possum — ☆ possum [päs′əm ] n. Informal OPOSSUM play possum to pretend to be asleep, dead, ill, unaware, etc.: an opossum may become motionless when endangered …   English World dictionary

  • Possum — Taxobox name = Possums image width = 240px image caption = Common Brushtail Possum ( Trichosurus vulpecula ) regnum = Animalia phylum = Chordata classis = Mammalia infraclassis = Marsupialia ordo = Diprotodontia subordo = Phalangeriformes subordo …   Wikipedia

  • Possum — Opossum Nom vernaculaire ou nom normalisé ambigu : Le terme « Opossum » s applique, en français, à plusieurs taxons distincts. Opossum …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Possum — Der Fuchskusu ist eine der als Possums bezeichneten Tierarten Als Possums werden eine Reihe von Beutelsäugern der Ordnung Diprotodontia aus dem australasischen Raum bezeichnet, namentlich ein Großteil oder auch alle Vertreter der Unterordnung… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • possum — /ˈpɒsəm / (say posuhm) noun 1. Also, Obsolete, opossum. any of many herbivorous, largely arboreal, Australian marsupials of the superfamily Phalangeroidea, especially of the genera Trichosurus, Pseudochirus and Petaurus, ranging in size from the… …  

  • possum — /pos euhm/, n. 1. opossum. 2. play possum, Informal. a. to feign sleep or death. b. to dissemble or pretend ignorance: The baseball broke the window, but the children played possum when asked who had thrown it. 3. Australian. any of various… …   Universalium

  • possum — stir the possum Deliberately cause controversy, especially in a public debate. The phrase was first recorded in 1900, but its origin is unknown. Some suggest it arose from a reversal of the American expression to play possum , which refers to the …   Australian idioms

  • possum — UK [ˈpɒs(ə)m] / US [ˈpɑsəm] noun [countable] Word forms possum : singular possum plural possums an opossum • play possum …   English dictionary

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