poison oak

Questions about poison oak

What does poison oak mean?

poison oak means "dermatitis resulting from contact with a poison oak plant". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for poison oak?

Close synonyms include poison ivy, markweed, poison mercury, Toxicodendron radicans, Rhus radicans. 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 oak a common word?

poison oak is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.