possum

名词 possum:

1. nocturnal arboreal marsupial having a naked prehensile tail found from southern North America to northern South America
   同义词：opossum
2. small furry Australian arboreal marsupials having long usually prehensile tails
   同义词：phalanger, opossum

1. The rabbit played possum under the bushes, hoping the hunter would not see him.
   兔子呆在灌木丛中一动也不动，希望猎人看不见它。
2. He began to suspect that his mother sometimes looked through his pockets while he was asleep, so for several nights he played possum when he heard her coming up the stairs and waited to see what would happen.
   他开始怀疑自己睡着时母亲有时翻他的口袋，于是有好几个晚上他一听到母亲上楼的脚步声就假装睡着了，等着瞧瞧会发生什么事。

pos.sum

n.Chiefly Southern U.S. （名词）【多用于美国南部】
An opossum.
负子鼠，飞袋貂

来源：
Short for opossum
opossum的简写

<注释>Since English is a language that stresses some syllables and not others, weakly stressed syllables,especially those preceding strong stresses, are dropped at times.This process, called aphesis when it occurs at the beginning of a word,is more common in regional American dialects than in the more conservative Standard English,which tends to retain in pronunciation anything reflected in spelling.Although many American dialects feature aphesis,it is most famous in the dialects of the South,where it yields pronunciationssuch ascount of for (on) account of, tater for potato, possum for opossum, and skeeter for mosquito.
由于英语是一种强调某些音节而不强调另一些音节的语言，所以弱音音节，特别是那些在重音音节之前的弱音音节就常常被省掉了。这个过程，如发生于一个字的开头就叫做词首非重读短元音省略。这种现象在美国地方方言中比在更为保守的标准英语中要常见得多，因为标准英语趋向于将拼写中的每一个字母都在发音中加以保存。虽然许多美国方言具有词首非重读短元音省略的特征，但这一现象在南方的方言中最为显著，并产生了许多新发音，如(on) account of 被读成 count of，potato 被读成 tater，opossum 被读成 possum 以及 mosquito 则被读成 skeeter