poison

ENEnglish
//ˈpɔɪ.zən//(General American, Received Pronunciation)

Verb Conjugation Tables & Inflections

Key Verb Forms & Inflections
Third-person singular (he/she/it):poisons
Present Participle (-ing):poisoning
Past Participle:poisoned
Simple Past:poisoned

Definitions & Usage

noun
#1

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

Example: Near-synonym: (loosely) venom
Example: We used a poison to kill the weeds.
noun
#2

(figuratively) Anything harmful to a person or thing.

Example: Gossip is a malicious poison.
noun
#3

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

Example: — What's your poison? — I'll have a glass of whiskey.
noun
#4

(chemistry) Any substance that inhibits catalytic activity.

verb
#5

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

Example: The assassin poisoned the king.
verb
#6

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

Example: That factory is poisoning the river.
Translations:
verb
#7

(transitive) To cause to become much worse.

Example: Suspicion will poison their relationship.
Example: He poisoned the mood in the room with his non-stop criticism.
Synonyms:
verb
#8

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

Example: She's poisoned him against all his old friends.
verb
#9

(chemistry) To inhibit the catalytic activity of.

verb
#10

(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:

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