poisonous
adj.adj. dangerous to eat, touch, or breathe because it contains something that can make you sick or kill you. You use this to describe plants, animals, or chemicals that are harmful if they get inside your body.
adj. containing or producing a substance capable of causing illness or death when ingested, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin. Often used to describe biological organisms or chemical compounds.
Be careful because those bright red berries are poisonous.
The hikers were warned to stay away from the poisonous mushrooms growing near the base of the trees.
While some snakes use venom to hunt, many amphibians rely on poisonous skin secretions to deter potential predators from attacking them.
From Middle English poisounous, poysonouse. By surface analysis, poison + -ous.
Typically used to describe things that are harmful when consumed or touched, as opposed to 'venomous' which describes creatures that inject toxins.
a poisonous snake bitea venomous snake biteIn technical contexts, 'poisonous' refers to things that are harmful if eaten or touched, while 'venomous' refers to creatures that inject toxins through a bite or sting.