| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| possum |
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| SYLLABICATION: | pos·sum |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  p s  m |
| NOUN: | Chiefly Southern U.S. An opossum. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Short for opossum. | | REGIONAL NOTE: | 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 pronunciations such as count of for (on) account of, tater for potato, possum for opossum, and skeeter for mosquito.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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