possum: Meaning and Definition of

pos•sum

Pronunciation: (pos'um), [key]
— n.
  1. opossum.
  2. The baseball broke the window, but the children played possum when asked who had thrown it.
    1. to feign sleep or death.
    2. to dissemble or pretend ignorance:The baseball broke the window, but the children played possum when asked who had thrown it.
  3. any of various phalangers, esp. of the genus Trichosurus.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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