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poisonous

adjective

Simple meaning

Of an animal such as a snake or spider.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

poyzuhnuhs

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IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈpɔɪzənəs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Containing sufficient poison to be dangerous to touch or ingest.

  2. sometimes proscribed

    Of an animal such as a snake or spider, or parts of its body: producing a toxin intended for defensive or offensive use which is usually injected into an enemy or prey by biting or stinging; hence, of a bite or sting: injecting poison.

  3. figuratively

    Negative, harmful.

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: containing sufficient poison to be dangerous to touch

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.