opossum
/əˈpɒsəm/
"opossum" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“opossum” is uncommon English (frequency #54,987 among 1,431 “O” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #54,987
- frequency rank, English
- 1,431
- “O” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any American marsupial of the family Didelphidae in the order Didelphimorphia.
Corpus desk
Index EN-opossum · opossum · English
opossum · rank #54,987 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #54,987
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,431
- PHOTO-FINISH OPC
Nearest frequency peer: OPC (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “opossum”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Ogg
Ogg
45,018 corpus weight
- Okie
Okie
45,017 corpus weight
- omnipotence
omnipotence
45,016 corpus weight
- OPC
OPC
45,015 corpus weight
- opossum
opossum
45,014 corpus weight
- Ormsby
Ormsby
45,010 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “opossum” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | opossum |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈpɒsəm/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #54,987 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “opossum” in English
Rare enough to double-check
opossum is uncommon English at frequency #54,987 among 1,431 “O” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /əˈpɒsəm/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Any American marsupial of the family Didelphidae in the order Didelphimorphia.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for opossum in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Algonquian *wa·p- Proto-Algonquian *aθemwa Proto-Algonquian *wa·p-aʔθemwa Powhatan aposoumbor. English opossum From Powhatan aposoum (“white animal”), from Proto-Algonquian *wa·p-aʔθemwa (“white dog”); compare Ojibwe waabasim (“white do… The correct English form is opossum, spelled O-P-O-S-S-U-M.
Definition
- 1Any American marsupial of the family Didelphidae in the order Didelphimorphia.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Algonquian *wa·p- Proto-Algonquian *aθemwa Proto-Algonquian *wa·p-aʔθemwa Powhatan aposoumbor. English opossum From Powhatan aposoum (“white animal”), from Proto-Algonquian *wa·p-aʔθemwa (“white dog”); compare Ojibwe waabasim (“white dog”).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "opossum", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).