poison

1. 1.

   any substance that causes injury or illness or death of a living organism

   Synonymstoxicantpoisonous substance

   Broadersubstance

   Narroweratropinehyoscyaminetoxin
2. 2.

   anything that harms or destroys

   “the poison of fascism”

   Broaderdestructiveness

Other forms of poison

plural

poisons·

past tense

poisonned·

present participle

poisonning·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about poison

What does poison mean?

poison means "spoil as if by poison". That is the primary sense; the word has 7 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in poison?

poison has 2 syllables: poi-son. The stress falls on "poi". In IPA it is /ˈpɔɪzən/.

What is another word for poison?

Close synonyms include envenom, toxicant, poisonous substance. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is poison a common word?

poison is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.