poison
verb/ˈpɔɪzn/
/ˈpɔɪzn/
Verb Forms
Idioms | present simple I / you / we / they poison | /ˈpɔɪzn/ /ˈpɔɪzn/ |
| he / she / it poisons | /ˈpɔɪznz/ /ˈpɔɪznz/ |
| past simple poisoned | /ˈpɔɪznd/ /ˈpɔɪznd/ |
| past participle poisoned | /ˈpɔɪznd/ /ˈpɔɪznd/ |
| -ing form poisoning | /ˈpɔɪzənɪŋ/ /ˈpɔɪzənɪŋ/ |
- to harm or kill a person or an animal by giving them poison
- poison somebody/yourself He was believed to poison his enemies.
- Thousands are at risk of being poisoned by fumes from faulty heaters.
- Poisoning the rats is expensive and harmful to the environment.
- poison somebody/yourself with something In the last chapter, she poisons herself with arsenic.
- to put poison in or on something
- poison something a poisoned arrow
- Someone had been poisoning his food.
- Large sections of the river have been poisoned by toxic waste from factories.
- Exhaust fumes are poisoning our cities.
- poison something with something The chocolates had been poisoned with cyanide.
- poison something to have a bad effect on something
- His comment served only to poison the atmosphere still further.
- She succeeded in poisoning their minds against me.
- I hope that if we do have disagreements they won't poison our relationship.
Word OriginMiddle English (denoting a harmful medicinal draught): from Old French poison ‘magic potion’, from Latin potio(n-) ‘potion’, related to potare ‘to drink’.
Idioms
See poison in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee poison in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englisha poisoned chalice
- (especially British English) a thing that seems attractive when it is given to somebody but which soon becomes unpleasant
- He inherited a poisoned chalice when he took over the job as union leader.
Check pronunciation:
poison