poisonとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From 中期英語 poisoun, poyson, poysone, puyson, puisun, from Old French poison, poisun, from Latin pōtiōnem (“drink, a draught, a poisonous draught, a potion”), from pōtō (“I drink”). See also potion and potable (from the same root). Mostly displaced native 古期英語 ātor. See more at atter.

発音

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /ˈpɔɪ.zən/
• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA: /ˈpoɪ.zən/
• 韻: -ɔɪzən
• ハイフネーション: poi‧son

名詞

poison (countable and uncountable, plural poisons)

1. A substance that is harmful or lethal to a living organism when ingested.

   Synonyms: atter, bane, contaminant, pollutant, toxin

   Hyponym: (strictly) venom

   Near-synonym: (loosely) venom

   We used a poison to kill the weeds.

2. (figuratively) Anything harmful to a person or thing.

   Gossip is a malicious poison.

   • 1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], Act IV:

     Awaie with the Rebels ſuffer them not to ſpeake,
     His words are poyſon in the eares of the people, […]

3. (informal, idiomatic) An alcoholic drink. (Mainly in the phrases "name your poison" and "what's your poison?")

   — What's your poison?
   — I'll have a glass of whiskey.

4. (chemistry) Any substance that inhibits catalytic activity.
   • 2013, Huazhang Liu, Ammonia Synthesis Catalysts: Innovation and Practice, page 693:

     The temperature effect of poisons. The influence of poison on the catalyst can be different with the change of reaction conditions.

使用する際の注意点

• In precise usage, the word poison is a hypernym, not a synonym, of venom: venom is a kind of poison (a kind of toxin) that an animal can deliver specifically via biting, stinging, or similarly controlled release. In herpetology it is shibbolethic to say the hyponym and not the hypernym when referring specifically to venom.
• The word poison is denotatively synonymous with toxin, but it is not connotatively identical and is thus not always freely interchangeable in idiomatic usage. Especially in toxicology, the words toxin, toxic, and toxicity are not idiomatically freely interchangeable with poison, poisonous, and poisonousness, respectively, for reasons of idiomatic tone rather than denotation.

派生語

動詞

poison (third-person singular simple present poisons, present participle poisoning, simple past and past participle poisoned)

1. (transitive) To use poison to kill or paralyse (somebody).

   The assassin poisoned the king.

2. (transitive) To pollute; to cause to become poisonous.

   Synonyms: contaminate, pollute, taint

   That factory is poisoning the river.

3. (transitive) To cause to become much worse.

   Synonyms: corrupt, taint

   Suspicion will poison their relationship.

   He poisoned the mood in the room with his non-stop criticism.

4. (transitive) To cause (someone) to hate or to have unfair negative opinions.

   She's poisoned him against all his old friends.

5. (chemistry) To inhibit the catalytic activity of.
6. (transitive, computing) To place false or malicious data into (a cache, etc.) as part of an exploit.
   • 2013, Ronald L. Mendell, Investigating Information-based Crimes, page 93:

     In this technique, the hacker poisons the cache to launch malware into Web pages.

派生語

参照

• Douglas Harper (2001–2025), “poison”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• “poison”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.