| 词汇 | play possum |
| 词源 | play possum. Opossum is one of the earliest of American- isms. Borrowed from Indian language, it made its first appear- ance as appossoun in 1610, was changed to opassom a few years later and within a century was being written as opossum and its abbreviated form possum. The animal, which Captain John Smith described as having “an head like a swine, a taile like a rat, and is of the bigness of a cat,” was known from the earliest days for the way it feigned death when threatened with capture. Trapped possums close their eyes and lay completely insuffera- ble limp and no matter how much abuse they are subjected to, will only become active when thrown into water. Hunters knew this from the earliest days and so although the expression play possum, “pretend or deceive,” was first recorded in 1822 the phrase is probably much older. |
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