The difference between Poison and Toxin

When used as nouns, poison means a substance that is harmful or lethal to a living organism, whereas toxin means a toxic or poisonous substance produced by the biological processes of biological organisms.


Poison is also verb with the meaning: to use poison to kill or paralyse somebody.

check bellow for the other definitions of Poison and Toxin

  1. Poison as a noun:

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

    Examples:

    "We used a poison to kill the weeds."

  2. Poison as a noun:

    Something that harms a person or thing.

    Examples:

    "Gossip is a malicious poison."

  3. Poison as a noun (informal):

    A drink; liquor.

    Examples:

    "— What's your poison?"

    "— I'll have a glass of whisky."

  1. Poison as a verb (transitive):

    To use poison to kill or paralyse somebody

    Examples:

    "The assassin poisoned the king."

  2. Poison as a verb (transitive):

    To pollute; to cause some part of the environment to become poisonous

    Examples:

    "That factory is poisoning the river."

  3. Poison as a verb (transitive):

    To cause something to become much worse

    Examples:

    "Suspicion will poison their relationship."

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

  4. Poison as a verb (transitive):

    To cause someone to hate or to have unfair negative opinions

    Examples:

    "She's poisoned him against all his old friends."

  1. Toxin as a noun:

    A toxic or poisonous substance produced by the biological processes of biological organisms.