Meanings
plural assapans
- Southern USuncommonThe southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans), found in the southern and eastern United States.
Assapans are fond of living in colonies, and where they have not been disturbed come together in great numbers for what can be no other purpose than play.
1909, Wallace Rice, Animals: a popular natural history of wild beasts, page 662 more examples
Other Taguans and Assapans belong to the genus Sciuropterus, or winged squirrels. Like most of the active rodents, the Flying Squirrels are very capable of domestication, and will soon learn to prefer the society of human beings […].
1875, John George Wood, Trespassers: showing how the inhabitants of earth, air, and water are enabled to trespass on domains not their own, page 299A very keen observation, prolonged for some time, is necessary to follow an Assapan at all, to distinguish and understand the purport of its different movements, […]
1896, Brehm's Life of animals, translated from the third German edition by Pechuel-Loesche, Haacke and Schmidtlein, page 312Synonyms: assapanick
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans), found in the southern and eastern United States.
Origin
- Eastern Algonquian
- Englishassapan
From Eastern Algonquian, probably Powhatan, first recorded as assapanick in 1612.
More words from Eastern Algonquian
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
assapan. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/assapan
“assapan.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/assapan. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “assapan,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/assapan.
Source: assapan on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.