Venom

/ˈvɛnəm/ · noun

Meaning

An animal toxin intended for defensive or offensive use; a biological poison delivered by bite, sting, etc., to protect an animal or to kill its prey..

Definitions by Sense

1. An animal toxin intended for defensive or offensive use; a biological poison delivered by bite, sting, etc., to protect an animal or to kill its prey.
2. (figuratively) Feeling or speech marked by spite or malice; vitriol.
3. (transitive, obsolete) To infect with venom; to envenom; to poison.
4. (obsolete) Poisonous, poisoned; (figuratively) pernicious.

Example Sentences

The serious artist […] [is] obsessed by his material; it’s like a venom working in his blood and the art is the antidote.

Venom evolved from saliva and it's used primarily for catching and digesting prey.

[…] There may be in the cup / A spider steep’d, and one may drink, depart, / And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge / Is not infected...

And from the Boughs brush off the evil dew, / And heal the harms of thwarting thunder blew, / Or what the cross dire-looking Planet smites, / Or hurtfull Worm with canker’d venom bites […]

I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom.

The venom of such looks, we fairly hope, / Have lost their quality, and that this day / Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.

[…] as I was feasting my jaundiced eye one morning with a certain newspaper, which I was in the habit of employing as the vehicle of my venom, I was startled at discovering myself conspicuously pointed out in an angry column as a cowardly defamer […]

My daughter […] has no occasion to dispute the identity of your person; the venom of your present language is sufficient to remind her that she speaks with the mortal enemy of her father.

Synonyms for venom

Antonyms for venom

Related Words

Word Forms

• venoms
• venoming
• venomed

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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