# poison

Pronunciation: say "POY-zuhn" /ˈpɔɪ.zən/

## Noun

1. A substance that harms or kills a living organism when it is taken into the body.
   - Simple: Something that can make a living thing very sick or kill it if it gets into the body.
   - _A few drops of this poison are enough to kill a large animal._
   - _Detectives found traces of poison in the victim's tea._
4. Anything that causes harm or damage to someone or something.
   - Simple: Something that slowly hurts a person, group, or relationship.
   - _Constant criticism became a poison that ate away at their marriage._
   - _He saw greed as a poison spreading through the company._
7. An alcoholic drink, used playfully when inviting someone to choose what they want to drink. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A playful word for an alcoholic drink that someone chooses.
   - _He leaned on the bar and asked me what my poison was._
   - _Gin is her poison, though she'll take wine in a pinch._
10. Any substance that reduces or blocks the activity of a catalyst.
   - Simple: A substance that stops a chemical helper from working.
   - _Engineers filter the feed gas to remove any poison before it reaches the catalyst._
   - _Arsenic is a notorious poison for platinum-based catalysts._

## Verb

2. To harm, sicken, or kill a person or animal by means of poison.
   - Simple: To hurt or kill a person or animal by giving them poison.
   - _Assassins once tried to poison the emperor with tainted food._
   - _She was accused of poisoning her husband over many months._
3. To pollute something, or to cause it to become poisonous.
   - Simple: To make water, air, or land dirty and harmful.
   - _Mining chemicals poisoned the groundwater for decades._
   - _Leaking oil began to poison the entire bay._
5. To cause something to become much worse.
   - Simple: To make something become much worse than before.
   - _A single betrayal can poison years of friendship._
   - _Distrust poisoned every meeting between the two leaders._
6. To cause someone to feel hatred or to hold unfair negative opinions.
   - Simple: To make someone hate or have unfair bad feelings about another.
   - _The rival spread rumors to poison the team against their captain._
   - _Years of propaganda had poisoned the public against immigrants._
8. To insert false or malicious data into a cache or similar store as part of an attack.
   - Simple: To sneak false or harmful data into a computer's stored memory.
   - _Attackers poison the DNS cache to redirect victims to malicious servers._
   - _Someone had poisoned the resolver's cache with forged records._
9. To reduce or block the catalytic activity of a substance.
   - Simple: To stop a chemical helper from doing its job.
   - _Sulfur compounds poison the platinum catalyst used in the reaction._
   - _Trace contaminants can poison a catalyst and halt production entirely._

## Origin

This word came through Middle English and Old French from Latin pōtiōnem, meaning "drink, a draught, a potion" (including a poisonous one), from pōtō ("I drink"). It is related to "potion" and "potable," and it mostly replaced the native Old English word ātor.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/poison (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).