Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various nocturnal, usually arboreal marsupials of the family Didelphidae of the Americas, especially Didelphis virginiana of North and Central America, having a thick coat, a long snout, and a long prehensile tail.
  • noun A possum of Australia and adjacent islands.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An American marsupial mammal of the family Didelphyidæ (which see for technical characters).
  • noun A name of sundry other marsupials: as, the ursine opossum (that is, the ursine dasyure); the vulpine opossum (the vulpine phalangist).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) Any American marsupial of the genera Didelphys and Chironectes; called also possum. The common species of the United States is Didelphys Virginiana.
  • noun (Zoöl.) See Flying mouse, under Flying.
  • noun (Zoöl.) any schizopod crustacean of the genus Mysis and allied genera. See Schizopoda.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun zoology Any American marsupial of the genera Didelphys and Chironectes. The common species of the United States is Didelphys virginiana.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun nocturnal arboreal marsupial having a naked prehensile tail found from southern North America to northern South America
  • noun small furry Australian arboreal marsupials having long usually prehensile tails

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Virginia Algonquian.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Powhatan opassum ("white animal"); compare Ojibwe waabasim ("white dog").

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Examples

Comments

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  • Jesus had 12 of these.

    March 12, 2009

  • How many of them had opossable thumbs as well as prehensile tails.

    opossokurtic - a distribution with a large prehensile tail that lives in the Vatican and is called Pedro.

    March 12, 2009

  • Jesus was one of the first animal communicators.

    March 12, 2009

  • But he had noted difficulties comprehending vegetables, leading to his betrayal by Judas Atastycarrot. Or was it Judas Asparagus, I was dozing off in Sunday school.

    March 12, 2009

  • PS. I didn't listen in Sunday school either, but I have learned later, that The Asparagus in question did what He told him to do. The 12 Opossums were successfully 'potty trained' and it was time to go back Home, for new adventures, ay.

    March 12, 2009

  • Ah.

    March 12, 2009

  • I think Eve might have been the very first... animal communicator,that is, not opossum!

    March 14, 2009