poison (French)

Where does "poison" come from?

The French noun 'poison' derives directly from Old French 'poison'[1], which was inherited from the Latin accusative singular 'pōtiōnem', from the noun 'pōtiō'[1][2]. In Latin, 'pōtiō' was formed from the supine stem of the verb 'pōtō' ('to drink') along with the noun-forming suffix '-tiō'[3][4]. The root extends back through Proto-Italic '*pōtos' to the Proto-Indo-European verbal root '*peh₃-', which also meant 'to drink'[5][6][7]. Over time, the Latin term for a beverage or draught shifted in meaning to denote a lethal concoction, while French later borrowed the Latin form again as the doublets 'potion' and 'poison'[1].

Open questions

• Linguist Michiel de Vaan suggests that Proto-Italic '*pōtos' shows replacement of an expected vowel under the influence of an ancestral root aorist form, rather than being a regular development from Proto-Indo-European '*ph₃tós'. [5]
• A potential cognate relationship between Latin 'pōtus' and Umbrian 'punes' is tentative. [5]

Full etymology tree

• poison (French), 'poison'
  • inherited poison (Old French), 'poison'
    • inherited potio (Latin), 'drinking'
      • suffix poto (Latin), 'to drink'
        • suffix potus (Latin), 'drunk (intoxicated)'
          • inherited *pōtos (Proto-Italic), 'drunk'
            • inherited *ph₃tós (Proto-Indo-European), 'drunk'
              • derived *peh₃- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to drink'
              • suffix *-tós (Proto-Indo-European), 'Creates verbal adjectives from verb roots.'
            • influenced by *péh₃t (Proto-Indo-European)
        • affix -o (Latin), 'suffixed to nouns or adjectives. Originally a-stem nouns. Later extended to nouns with other stems. Forms regular first-conjugation verbs'
      • affix -tio (Latin), '-tion, -ation, -ing; suffixed to verbs to form action nouns denoting a process, action, or result of an action.'

Ancestors

• poison (Old French)
• potio (Latin)

Cognates and doublets

• potion (French)

Descendants and derived words

• empoisonnement (French)
• empoisonner (French)
• poisonneux (French)
• pwezon (Walloon)

Sources

1. poison (French) - Wiktionary
2. poison (Old French) - Wiktionary
3. potio (Latin) - Wiktionary
4. poto (Latin) - Wiktionary
5. potus (Latin) - Wiktionary
6. pōtos (Proto-Italic) - Wiktionary
7. ph₃tós (Proto-Indo-European) - Wiktionary

Updated October 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris