poisoning

1. A substance that causes injury, illness, or death, especially by chemical means.

2. Something destructive or fatal.

3. Chemistry & Physics A substance that inhibits another substance or a reaction: a catalyst poison.

1. To kill or harm with poison.

2. To put poison on or into: poisoning arrows; poisoned the drink.

3. 1. To pollute: Noxious fumes poison the air. See Synonyms at contaminate.

   2. To have a harmful influence on; corrupt: Jealousy poisoned their friendship.

4. Chemistry & Physics To inhibit (a substance or reaction).

Word History: The phrase poison potion, besides being alliterative, also consists of doublets, that is, two words that go back ultimately to the same source in another language. The source for both words is Latin pōtiō (stem form pōtiōn-), which meant "the act of drinking, a drink, or a draft, as of a medicine or poison." Our word potion, which retains the sense "dose," passed through Old French (pocion) on its way to Middle English (pocion), first recorded in a work composed around 1300. In Old French pocion is a learned borrowing, one that was deliberately taken from Latin in a form corresponding to the Latin form. Our spelling potion is the result of a similar impulse toward Latinization; in the late Renaissance and Enlightenment, numerous English words that had been borrowed from Old French were respelled according to the shape of their Latin ancestors. Pocion thus was changed to potion on the model of Latin pōtiō. But the Latin word had also passed through Vulgar Latin into Old French in the different form poison. This word meant "beverage," "liquid dose," and also "poison beverage, poison." The word poison is first recorded in Middle English in a work composed around 1200.

1. mod.
   wicked; evil. : Stay away from her. She's poison.
2. n.
   an alcoholic drink. : Name your poison.