poison
Verb Conjugation Tables & Inflections
Definitions & Usage
A substance that is harmful or lethal to a living organism when ingested.
(figuratively) Anything harmful to a person or thing.
(informal, idiomatic) An alcoholic drink. (Mainly in the phrases "name your poison" and "what's your poison?")
(chemistry) Any substance that inhibits catalytic activity.
(transitive) To use poison to kill or paralyse (somebody).
(transitive) To pollute; to cause to become poisonous.
(transitive) To cause to become much worse.
(transitive) To cause (someone) to hate or to have unfair negative opinions.
(chemistry) To inhibit the catalytic activity of.
(transitive, computing) To place false or malicious data into (a cache, etc.) as part of an exploit.
Notable Literary & Historical Quotes
“Awaie with the Rebels ſuffer them not to ſpeake, His words are poyſon in the eares of the people, […]”
— 1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act IV:
“The temperature effect of poisons. The influence of poison on the catalyst can be different with the change of reaction conditions.”
— 2013, Huazhang Liu, Ammonia Synthesis Catalysts: Innovation and Practice, page 693:
“In this technique, the hacker poisons the cache to launch malware into Web pages.”
— 2013, Ronald L. Mendell, Investigating Information-based Crimes, page 93: