Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Opossum   Listen
noun
Opossum  n.  (Zool.) Any American marsupial of the genera Didelphys and Chironectes; called also possum. The common species of the United States is Didelphys Virginiana. Note: Several related species are found in South America. The water opossum of Brazil (Chironectes variegatus), which has the hind feet, webbed, is provided with a marsupial pouch and with cheek pouches. It is called also yapock.
Opossum mouse. (Zool.) See Flying mouse, under Flying.
Opossum shrimp (Zool.), any schizopod crustacean of the genus Mysis and allied genera. See Schizopoda.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Opossum" Quotes from Famous Books



... xvii.] that the holding of a fellow-creature in bondage, and exploiting him for one's own advantage, even under the lash, was, until recently, not a crime in the eye of the law even in the most civilized states. On the other hand, it may be a crime to eat a female opossum. [Footnote: Ibid., I, chapter iv, p. 124.] The impressive imperative: Thou shalt not! appears to bear unmistakable reference ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... Marsupialia,[153] is furnished with a pouch, into which the young are received and nourished at a very early period of their existence. The first species of the group, known to voyagers and naturalists, was the celebrated opossum of North America, whose instinctive care to defend itself from danger causes it to feign the appearance of death. As the great continent of Australia became known, it was found that the great mass of its mammalia, from the gigantic kangaroo to the pigmy, mouse-like potoroo, belonged to this ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... almost expecting to see a literal fulfilment of the prophecy. A form of imposing stature appeared. It was that of a negro upwards of six feet in height, magnificently proportioned, straight as a pillar, and black as ebony. He wore a dress of skins, carried a gun in his hand, and had an opossum slung over ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... Marsupials and Monotremes is excellent; especially his section on the Phalanger or Australian Opossum, an animal which has been curiously neglected by all Dictionaries of repute. On New Zealand mammals it is not necessary to quote any book; for when the English came, it is said, New Zealand contained ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... in what circumstance is the Phascolotherium more embryonic, or of a more generalized type, than the modern Opossum; or a Lophiodon, or a Palaeotherium, than a ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... ruin; and had to be picked up and called to order by their elders. Next, the wind, which ranged freely through the open roof, blew my bedclothes off. Then the dogs exploded outside, probably at some henroost-robbing opossum, and had a chevy through the cocos till they tree'd their game, and bayed it to their hearts' content. Then something else exploded—and I do not deny it set me more aghast than I had been for many a day— exploded, I say, under the window, with a shriek ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... digression. The marsupials, except the opossum, are confined to Australia, and the oviparous mammals, or monotremes, to New Zealand. Formerly the marsupials, at least, ranged all over Europe and Asia, for we have indisputable evidence in their fossil remains. But they have survived only in this isolated area, and here apparently ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... care of a tender mother, of the respectable family of Meriwethers, of the same county; and was remarkable even in infancy for enterprise, boldness, and discretion. When only eight years of age he habitually went out, in the dead of night, alone with his dogs, into the forest to hunt the raccoon and opossum, which, seeking their food in the night, can then only be taken. In this exercise, no season or circumstance could obstruct his purpose—plunging through the winter's snows and frozen streams in pursuit of his object. At thirteen he was put to the Latin school, and ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... killed. The very beauty of the day interfered with the sport, for the air was so still and clear that the kangaroos heard and saw the hunters long before they could get within shot. After supper the gentlemen went out to hunt opossums by moonlight, and shot two, literally 'up a gum-tree.' Opossum-hunting does not seem great sport, for the poor little animals sit like cats on the branch of a tree, with their long tails hanging down, and are easily spied by a ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... A poor devil of a monkey, that you could knock over with a bit of a stick; as easily as you could kill an opossum. Ah, hombre! the voice of the great Tlaloc is more terrible than that. But see! what ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... like one another longer than do those of a snake and of a bird; and the embryo of a dog and of a cat remain like one another for a far longer period than do those of a dog and a bird, or a dog and an opossum, or even those of a ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott

... the Mesozoic had been small and primitive animals, rarely larger than a rat, and never rising above the marsupial stage in organisation. They not only continued to exist, and give rise to their modern representatives (the opossum, etc.) during the Tertiary Era, but they shared the general prosperity. In Australia, where they were protected from the higher carnivorous mammals, they gave rise to huge elephant-like wombats (Diprotodon), with skulls two or three feet in length. Over the earth generally, however, ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... seemed to separate from the main body, becoming little bodies of themselves with long tails upon them, and looking just like a squad of white rats! The large body to which they had all been attached we now saw was an old female opossum, and evidently the mother of the whole troop. She was about the size of a cat, and covered with woolly hair of a light grey colour. She had a snout somewhat resembling that of a pig, though much sharper at the point, and with whiskers like a cat. Her ears were ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... summer months they frequent the sea-coast, where their skill in spearing fish is described as quite wonderful. In winter they mostly adhere to the woods on the higher grounds, where the kangaroos, the opossum tribe, and the land tortoises are plentiful. These, with birds and roots, constitute their sustenance. They have neither boat nor raft, nor did the party fall in with any thing resembling a hut. They made use of the word "kangaroo" and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various

... puzzle, too, Vesta. He has everything which these foresters lack,—education, society, standing, and comforts. But he returns to the forest, like an opossum, the moment your eye is off him. He can't be traced up like this man, by his hat. I think it's a shame on you, particularly. If he don't come home this day, I shall send for my brother and force an account of my property from ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... Some of the early impressions of the plates have erroneously Wulpine Oppossum for Vulpine Opossum. After a few were work'd off the fault was perceived, ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip

... embryos of a Snake and of a Lizard remain like one another longer than do those of a Snake and of a Bird; and the embryo of a Dog and of a Cat remain like one another for a far longer period than do those of a Dog and a Bird; or of a Dog and an Opossum; or even than those of a ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... in the modernised forests. At last the pouched creatures all disappear utterly from all the world, save only Australia, with the solitary exception of a single advanced marsupial family, the familiar opossum of plantation melodies. And the history of the opossum himself is so very singular that it almost deserves to receive the polite attention of a separate paragraph for its ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... but we assured him that the man was far ahead of many specimens we had met. We never see an opossum in Virginia—a fossil animal in most other places—but it seems the sign of the moral stratification around. There are many varieties of opossum in Virginia,—political and religious: Saturn, who devours his offspring, has not come to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... frequently seen in the woods where there is no longer any large game are the chipmunk, the red, the gray, and the black squirrel, the rabbit and hare, the fox, weasel, pine-marten, woodchuck, raccoon, opossum, and skunk, also the pack-rat (of the west), the white-footed and field mouse. In deeper and wilder forests there are deer and porcupine, though deer are found quite near habitations at times. In more remote places there are the moose ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

... not denied the use of an axe, and no man knows better how to handle it than he. The 'coon, therefore, is his natural game, and much sport does he have in its pursuit. Nearly the same may be said of the opossum (Didelphis Virginiana); but the "'possum" is more rare, and it is not our intention now to describe that very curious creature. From both 'coon and 'possum does the poor negro derive infinite sport—many a sweet excitement that cheers his long winter ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... Waterhouse, when he published, in 1841, his "History of the Marsupialia," reckoned up one hundred and five distinct species of pouched animals; and eighteen species more,—in all one hundred and twenty-three,—have been since added to the order. With the exception of an opossum or two, all these marsupiata may be regarded as discoveries made since the time of Buffon; most of them, as I have said, are small. And such, generally, has been the nature of the revelations made during the last seventy years by positive discovery. It is not, however, by ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... at the idea of this model lad going out to Melbourne in a large ship, and seeing dear Wiriwilta before she could do so. She gave him messages to some of the people, and desired him to inquire after the welfare of her pet opossum and her rose-crested cockatoo, and write her a full, true, and particular account of them all, and of how he liked the colony, which Edgar ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... Mary," cried the black; and he shook the objects on his spear, which proved to be a couple of opossum-like animals evidently freshly killed, and then held out his ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn

... numerous, and in such large clusters, that I secured no less than eleven at one time, by using both hands. Small kangaroos appeared to be plentiful enough, but we were not so fortunate as to shoot one. The natives one day brought down to us a live opossum, quite tame, and very gentle; this turned out to be new, and has since been described by Mr. Gould under the name ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... roused from its stony winter lair, writhed eerily up the slope, heedless of its fellow travelers' existence. A raccoon was breasting the steep, from another angle. And behind it came clawing a round-paunched opossum; grinning from the pain of sparks that were stinging it ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... prehensile tail, marsupial pouch, and cunning ways, stands alone for its singularity among all the animals of the American continent. Many of the tribe are found in South America; but the Virginian opossum, the size of a full-grown cat, is larger than all its relatives. The head and body measure about twenty-two inches; and the tail, fifteen. It is covered with a light grey hair of wool-like softness, short on the face and body, but long on the legs. The base end of the tail is thick and black, and ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... food is indian corn, or rice and beans, boiled in water, without fat or salt. To them nothing comes amiss. They will devour greedily racoon, opossum, squirrels, wood-rats, and even the crocodile; leaving to the white people the roebuck and rabbit, which they sell them when they ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... for Lord Lovelace came himself between eleven and twelve at night with a ticket, which he gave me, at Lady Byron's request. You may guess how happy I was to have the third ticket for Honora, and we were all full dressed, punctual to the minute, in Fanny's carriage, and with my new-dressed opossum cloak covering our knees, ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... described. Some are both carnivorous and insectivorous, and are therefore armed with powerful canines, and with molars like those of the hedgehog. Others are herbivorous, like hares, and have almost the jaws of a rodent. Among the former we have the opossum, celebrated by Florian in one of his prettiest fables. The opossum inhabits South America. Charming little marsupials are to be found in the Molucca Isles, whence come the nutmeg and the clove; these ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... cat, ape, grasshopper; in Oceania, kangaroo, emu, pig, heron, owl, rail, eel, cuttlefish; in Asia, lion, elephant, bear, horse, bull, dog, pig, eagle, tiger, water wagtail, whale; in Europe, bear, wolf, horse, bull, goat, swan; in America, whale, bear, wolf, fox, coyote, hare, opossum, deer, monkey, tiger, beaver, turtle, eagle, raven, various fishes. The snake seems to have been generally revered, though it was sometimes regarded as hostile.[450] Since animals are largely valued as food, changes ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... monthly periods, but when the third is over she is brought to her husband bedecked with savage finery. Eagle-hawk or cockatoo feathers are stuck in her hair: a shell hangs over her forehead: grass bugles encircle her neck and an apron of opossum skin her waist: strings are tied to her arms and wrists; and her whole body is mottled with patterns drawn in red, white, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... VERN! with the eyes of an opossum, a common nose, healthy-looking cheeks, not very small mouth, no beard, long neck for Jack Ketch, broad shoulders, never broken down by too much work, splendid chest, long arms—the whole of your appearance ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... oysters mostly," said Jack, "and Joe killed a fat opossum with a club, and we caught some fish in a net which I knotted from a ball of marline that was in the boat. And we foraged for pawpaws ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... pass, and many fallen trees which lay athwart the way. In their march they saw three different kinds of deer, hares, rabbits, bears, and lions[130], with other wild beasts; and among these an animal called the opossum, which carries its young in a pouch under the belly till they are able to shift for themselves. The country is cold[131], and has good pasture for cattle. In the woods and marshes through which they passed they saw many different kinds of birds, as geese, ducks, herons, partridges, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... who have been met with in the woods had longer arms and legs than those who lived about us. This might proceed from their being compelled to climb the trees after honey and the small animals which resort to them, such as the flying squirrel and opossum, which they effect by cutting with their stone hatchets notches in the bark of the tree of a sufficient depth and size to receive the ball of the great toe. The first notch being cut, the toe is placed in it; and while the left ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... might go shuffling across, an opossum, or a snake going to the lake. Now are you frightened so that ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter



Words linked to "Opossum" :   possum, flying squirrel, common opossum, crab-eating opossum, family Didelphidae, phalanger, opossum rat, koala bear, native bear, brush-tailed phalanger, Didelphis virginiana, marsupial, Didelphidae, opossum wood, pouched mammal



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com