poison

B2 · Upper Intermediate Uncountable noun

n. something that has a very bad or harmful effect on a person or situation.

n. an object, influence, or idea that is destructive or corrupting to the mind or a social environment.

“Jealousy can be a poison that destroys even the strongest friendships.”

“The spread of misinformation acted as a poison within the community, eroding trust in local institutions and creating deep social divisions.”

C1 · Advanced Uncountable noun Informal · Humorous

n. a humorous way to refer to an alcoholic drink.

n. a slang reference to an alcoholic beverage, typically used when offering a choice of drinks.

“Step up to the bar and name your poison.”

“After a long week at the office, he turned to his colleague and asked, 'What's your poison tonight?'”

B1 · Intermediate

v. to kill or harm a person or animal using a toxic substance.

v. to administer poison to a person or animal; to kill or injure by means of a toxin.

“The king was afraid that his enemies would try to poison his food.”

“The assassin attempted to poison the diplomat by coating the handle of the car door with a fast-acting nerve agent.”

B2 · Upper Intermediate

v. to make a situation or someone's mind bad or hateful.

v. to corrupt or pervert the character or quality of something; to embitter a person's mind.

“Don't let his lies poison your opinion of the rest of the team.”

“The constant stream of negative propaganda served to poison the minds of the youth against their neighbours.”

B2 · Upper Intermediate Science

v. to make a place, like a river or the air, dirty and dangerous.

v. to contaminate an environment with harmful substances.

“Chemicals from the old factory continued to poison the local river for years.”

“Industrial runoff began to poison the groundwater, leading to a significant decline in the health of the local ecosystem.”

C1 · Advanced Computing Technical

v. to put false information into a computer system to break it.

v. to introduce malicious or false data into a cache or database to subvert a system's operations.

“The hackers tried to poison the server's cache to redirect users to a fake website.”

“DNS cache poisoning remains a significant threat, as it allows attackers to intercept traffic by providing false IP addresses to legitimate requests.”