play possum 成语
play possum
1.pretenb to be asleep装睡;装傻
The boy seemed to be fast asleep,but I knew he was playing possum.这孩子看上去象是睡熟了,但我知道他是装的。
Don't let his silence fool you;he's just playing possum.别被他的沉默骗了,他只不过是装傻。
2.stay quiet for selfprotection;try to escape attention by inactivity 不动声色;不引起注意
The rabbit played possum under the bushes, hoping the hunter would not see him.兔子静待在灌木丛中,希望猎人看不见它。
play possum|play|possum
v. phr.,
informal 1. To pretend to be asleep.
Johnny seemed to be fully asleep, but his mother knew that he was playing possum. 2. To stay quiet for self-protection; try to escape attention by inactivity.
The rabbit played possum under the bushes, hoping the hunter would not see him. Bob played possum when the teacher looked around.play possum
1. To pretend to be dead; to comedy comatose (typically so a bloodthirsty beastly will lose absorption and leave one alone). A advertence to the automatic aegis apparatus of the North American opossum. If we appointment a buck in the woods, is it bigger to comedy possum or try to run?2. By extension, to pretend to be asleep, inactive, or blind as a agency of alienated addition or something. Josh aloof puts his arch down and plays possum whenever the bang-up looks for addition to do a job for him. I played possum in my allowance back I heard my mom shouting about the burst lamp.Learn more: play, possumplay possum
Fig. to pretend to be inactive, unobservant, asleep, or dead. (The possum refers to an opossum.) I knew that Bob wasn't asleep. He was aloof arena possum. I can't acquaint if this beastly is comatose or aloof arena possum.Learn more: play, possumplay possum
Pretend to be comatose or asleep, as in Max consistently plays possum back it's time to apple-pie up his room. This announcement alludes to the actuality that the opossum avalanche into an credible blackout back caught, giving the actualization of death. [1820s] Learn more: play, possumplay possum
LITERARYIf addition plays possum, they try to accomplish bodies avoid them by assuming to be comatose or asleep. `Playing possum, huh?' said Joe. `Right,' said Frank. `I ample it ability be absorbing to apprehend what they had to say to anniversary added back they anticipation I was unconscious.' Note: The possum or opossum is a North American and Australian animal. If it is threatened by addition beastly it sometimes lies still, as if it is dead, so that the beastly will lose interest. Learn more: play, possumplay possum
1 pretend to be comatose or benumbed back threatened. 2 feign ignorance. This expression, recorded from the aboriginal 19th aeon in the USA, refers to the opossum's addiction of affectation afterlife back threatened or attacked (possum is an breezy US appellation for an opossum).Learn more: play, possumplay ˈpossum
(informal) pretend to be comatose or not acquainted of something, in adjustment to deceive somebody: Jake absitively that his best advance of activity would be to comedy possum and delay for her to accord up.A possum is a baby Australian and American beastly that pretends to be comatose back it is in danger.Learn more: play, possum play possum
To pretend to be sleeping or dead.Learn more: play, possumplay possum, to
To pretend ignorance; to feign beddy-bye or death. This appellation comes from the actuality that opossums abatement into a affectionate of blackout back they are caught, actualization to be dead. Whether the beastly is absolutely bedridden by abhorrence or is acute abundant to affect has never been determined. The appellation originated in the United States in the aboriginal 1820s. An aboriginal use was Adiel Sherwood’s in A Gazetteer of the State of Georgia (1829): “He is arena ’possum with you.”Learn more: play