opossum
/əˈpɒsəm/
"opossum" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“opossum” is an uncommon English word, ranked #54,987 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #54,987
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any American marsupial of the family Didelphidae in the order Didelphimorphia.
| 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) |
Where “opossum” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for opossum is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈpɒsəm/. Corpus data places it at rank #54,987 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "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
How do you spell "opossum"?
What does "opossum" mean?
How do you pronounce "opossum"?
What is the origin of the word "opossum"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “opossum”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is O-P-O-S-S-U-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /əˈpɒsəm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.