poison

From Middle English poisoun, poyson, poysone, puyson, puisun, from Old French poison, poisun, from Latin pōtiōnem (“drink, a draught, a poisonous draught, a potion”), from pōtō (“I drink”). See also potion and potable (from the same root). Mostly displaced native Old English ātor (see atter).

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: poi'zən, IPA^(key): /ˈpɔɪz(ə)n/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔɪzən
• Hyphenation: poi‧son

poison (countable and uncountable, plural poisons)

1. A substance that is harmful or lethal to a living organism when ingested.

   We used a poison to kill the weeds.

2. (figuratively) Anything harmful to a person or thing.

   Gossip is a malicious poison.

   • 1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], Act IV:

     Awaie with the Rebels ſuffer them not to ſpeake,
     His words are poyſon in the eares of the people, […]

3. (informal, idiomatic) An alcoholic drink. (Mainly in the phrases "name your poison" and "what's your poison?")

   — What's your poison?

   — I'll have a glass of whiskey.

4. (chemistry) Any substance that inhibits catalytic activity.
   • 2013, Huazhang Liu, Ammonia Synthesis Catalysts: Innovation and Practice, page 693:

     The temperature effect of poisons. The influence of poison on the catalyst can be different with the change of reaction conditions.

• In precise usage, the word poison is a hypernym, not a synonym, of venom: venom is a kind of poison (a kind of toxin) that an animal can deliver specifically via biting, stinging, or similarly controlled release. In herpetology it is shibbolethic to say the hyponym and not the hypernym when referring specifically to venom.
• The word poison is denotatively synonymous with toxin, but it is not connotatively identical and is thus not always freely interchangeable in idiomatic usage. Especially in toxicology, the words toxin, toxic, and toxicity are not idiomatically freely interchangeable with poison, poisonous, and poisonousness, respectively, for reasons of idiomatic tone rather than denotation.

• (substance that is harmful): atter, bane, contaminant, pollutant, toxin

poison (third-person singular simple present poisons, present participle poisoning, simple past and past participle poisoned)

1. (transitive) To use poison to kill or paralyse (somebody).

   The assassin poisoned the king.

2. (transitive) To pollute; to cause to become poisonous.

   That factory is poisoning the river.

3. (transitive) To cause to become much worse.

   Suspicion will poison their relationship.

   He poisoned the mood in the room with his non-stop criticism.

4. (transitive) To cause (someone) to hate or to have unfair negative opinions.

   She's poisoned him against all his old friends.

5. (chemistry) To inhibit the catalytic activity of.
6. (transitive, computing) To place false or malicious data into (a cache, etc.) as part of an exploit.
   • 2013, Ronald L. Mendell, Investigating Information-based Crimes, page 93:

     In this technique, the hacker poisons the cache to launch malware into Web pages.

• Not to be confused with envenomate

• (to pollute): contaminate, pollute, taint
• (to cause to become worse): corrupt, taint

• Swedish: förgifta (sv)
• Thai: วางยา (th), เบื่อ (th) (bʉ̀ʉa)
• Turkish: zehirlemek (tr), ağılamak (tr)
• Tày: bưa
• Ukrainian: отру́ювати impf (otrújuvaty), тру́їти impf (trújity), отру́їти pf (otrújity)
• Venetan: invełenar, inverinar, intosegar, tosegar
• Volapük: venenön (vo)
• Welsh: gwenwyno (cy)
• Yiddish: פֿאַרסמען (farsamen), פֿאַרגיפֿטן (fargiftn), סמען (samen)

• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “poison”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• “poison”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

From Old French poison f, inherited from Latin pōtiōnem f. Doublet of potion f, a borrowing.

• IPA^(key): /pwa.zɔ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

poison m (plural poisons)

1. poison

   Poisson sans boisson est poison. ― Fish without drink is poison.

• empoisonner
  • empoisonnement m
• poisonneux

• → Walloon: pwezon m

• “poison”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

poison

1. alternative form of poisoun

• peissun, peyson, poisoun, pouson, poyson, poysoun, poysun, puison, puisson, puisun, puson, pusoun, pusoune, pusun^[1]

From Latin pōtiōnem, accusative singular of pōtio f.

poison oblique singular, f (oblique plural poisons, nominative singular poison, nominative plural poisons)

1. poison
   • c. 1176, Chrétien de Troyes, Cligès:

     Thessala tranpre sa poison

     Thessala mixed her poison

2. potion

• Middle French: poison ?
  • French: poison m
    • → Walloon: pwezon m
• → Dutch: poisoen
• → Middle English: poisoun, poison, puison, poisen, puyson, poysone, puisun
  • English: poison
  • Scots: pushion

poison oblique singular, m (oblique plural poisons, nominative singular poisons, nominative plural poison)

1. alternative spelling of poisson^[1]

Borrowed from French poison. Doublet of poción.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpoison/ [ˈpoi̯.sõn]
• Rhymes: -oison
• Syllabification: poi‧son

poison m (plural póisones)

1. (Louisiana) poison

   Synonyms: ponzoña, veneno