Definition of "poison" []

• A substance that causes injury, illness, or death, especially by chemical means. (noun)
• Something destructive or fatal. (noun)
• Chemistry & Physics A substance that inhibits another substance or a reaction: a catalyst poison. (noun)
• To kill or harm with poison. (verb-transitive)
• To put poison on or into: poisoning arrows; poisoned the drink. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "You learn very soon that poison medicines are kept apart from the others, and quickly associate the _poison_ label with danger to patients, necessity of locking safely away and hiding the key from any but those responsible for the care of the sick."
• "See stäf. âter-teár, m., _poisonous drop_: dat.pl. îren âter-teárum fâh (steel which is dipped in poison or in poisonous sap of plants), 1460. âttor, st. n., _poison_, here of the poison of the dragon's bite: nom.,"
• "This turned out to be what we call a poison pen, what the intelligence people call a poison pen."