(Sometimes to Possum.) To sham death or inability; to dissemble.
1824. It is a common saying in America, when any one is pretending or counterfeiting, that he is “playing possum.”—W. N. Blane, ‘Excursion,’ 134. (N.E.D.)
1833. The Yankee had money enough about him, and was merely playing the ’possum all the while.—Asa Greene (‘Elnathan Elmwood’), ‘A Yankee among the Nullifiers,’ p. 32.
1834. The rascal had only been possuming the whole time, and was better able to travel than I was, but wanted me to break the way and pack his gun.—Albert Pike, ‘Sketches,’ &c., p. 32 (Boston).
1834. They most all of ’em pretended to be too etarnal drunk. I said nothin though, but ’possumed too a little; only sipped a little wine, and that made me straight instead of crooked.—Caruthers, ‘The Kentuckian in New-York,’ i. 64.
1841. There’s no chance to play possum with your brother any longer. It’s lion and tiger now, if any thing.—W. G. Simms, ‘The Kinsmen,’ i. 120 (Phila.).
1843. Tim Scratch know’d better nor to come! he’s not sick no how—it’s all possum!—B. R. Hall (‘Robert Carlton’), ‘The New Purchase,’ ii. 201.
1847. This would prevent what the tars were wont to call “shamming Abraham,” and “playing possum.”—Mr. Bayly of Virginia, House of Repr., Jan. 28: Cong. Globe, p. 280.
1848. I don’t imagine a woman can play possum in that kind of style.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ i. 244.
1852. The Indian, however, to use Adam’s own expression, ‘had only been possuming!’—H. C. Watson, ‘Nights in a Block-house,’ p. 174 (Phila.). (Italics in the original.)
1854. It is a common saying with them [hunters], that a man who takes great pains to dissemble for a particular purpose is “opossuming!”—Lambert Lilly, ‘History of the Western States,’ p. 18.
1861. This last looked like affectation, or as the negroes call it, ‘possuming.’—Knick. Mag., lvii. 627 (June).
1867. They caught John Thomas of Company A, and beat him, as they thought, to death. He however, played possum, and after they left got up.—J. M. Crawford, ‘Mosby and his Men,’ p. 312.
1888. [There was a] possibility of possuming among those [grizzlies] stretched out below.—Chicago Inter-Ocean, Feb. 6 (Farmer).
