Poisonous or venomous?

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Poisonous or venomous?

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1darrow
Aug. 23, 2014, 3:06 pm

Some years ago I had the misfortune to step on a stone fish while snorkelling in the Maldives. Not recommended. It caused the most pain I have every experienced. I was treated with anti-venom. When I returned home I told my doctor that I had stepped on a venomous fish. He said,"You mean a poisonous fish". I said, "No, it injected venom into me from its spines so it's venomous". He ignored me because I later found out that he had written in my notes:"Tissue damage caused by a poisonous fish".

My understanding is that you have to eat or touch something to be poisoned. If it bites or has spines, it's venomous. Some snakes have venom. They are not poisonous snakes.

2John_Vaughan
Aug. 23, 2014, 7:36 pm

Some are actually darrow, particularly if they had bitten themselves in death throes, but your point is well taken. I had a cat-fish spike in my toe in the Caribe and as the islanders took me ashore to hospital they kept reassuring me "You die soon, very poisonous". Bless them.

3Mr.Durick
Aug. 23, 2014, 7:43 pm

Without consulting an authority but looking into my own native speaker's usage, I have in my vocabulary poison as the broader bane of which venom is one. So there are poisonous frogs, and there are poisonous snakes — the frogs are not poisonous (the ones that hurt you when you lick them), but the snakes are.

Robert

4darrow
Aug. 24, 2014, 5:35 am

>2 John_Vaughan: I was taken by boat to a small island that had a hospital. The local people came to see me and pray for me. They made the sign of the cross with their fingers and touched my foot. Nobody said I would die but later I found out that the injury can be lethal.

5thorold
Bearbeitet: Aug. 26, 2014, 7:35 am

>1 darrow:
Ouch! Sounds very unpleasant, either way.

>3 Mr.Durick:
I think general and specific could be a good way to look at it: The real distinction between "poisonous" and "venomous" doesn't seem to be at all clear. The OED uses each term in the course of defining the other, for instance, and the limitation to oral ingestion for "poison" doesn't seem to exist in practice (cf. Hamlet where "poison" is poured into the king's ear).

There is clearly a special sense of "venomous" that refers to animals that are capable of secreting a substance harmful to other animals, and it would be useful to be able to distinguish them from "poisonous" things that are harmful when eaten. But the examples I've seen in the OED and elsewhere don't really seem to support the existence of that distinction in actual use. If I can cite Shakespeare again, there's Henry VI: "What! art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf? Be poisonous too and kill thy forlorn queen." - I don't think the queen is going to eat the snake here. OTOH, there's a "venomous" toad in As you like it, where we would probably prefer "poisonous".

6John_Vaughan
Aug. 26, 2014, 11:04 am

>1 darrow: Strange that a Doctor would argue the point with you - both venom and Serum are Latin (are they not?) and are the technical medical terms.

7krazy4katz
Aug. 26, 2014, 12:59 pm

I always assumed that venom was a biological type of poison. Venom is poisonous. However venom can be used to connote evil, probably because "back in the day" snakes were considered evil.

8darrow
Aug. 26, 2014, 2:38 pm

I suppose that once the venom is in your body you could say that it poisons you. The means by which various venoms kill or cause damage vary considerably but perhaps they work in different ways to ingested poisons.

9Mr.Durick
Aug. 26, 2014, 3:22 pm

I meant to say in 3 that frogs are not venomous.

Robert

10Helenliz
Bearbeitet: Aug. 26, 2014, 3:35 pm

In cartoon form: here (I do hope that works)

11darrow
Aug. 28, 2014, 1:35 pm

Thanks Helenliz. Good find.

12krazy4katz
Bearbeitet: Aug. 28, 2014, 2:40 pm

>10 Helenliz:

Yes, the cartoon does help. I will have to be careful in the future when I use these words. Thank you.

13CliffordDorset
Sept. 2, 2014, 7:43 pm

In literature one might say something 'with venom', but saying it 'with poison' sounds rather more chemically aided. On the other hand, one can send a 'poison pen letter', but probably not a venom version.

14PhaedraB
Sept. 2, 2014, 11:48 pm

One could send a poison pen letter filled with venomous prose...

15barney67
Sept. 4, 2014, 4:47 pm

My American Heritage dictionary and New Oxford American dictionary (Mac version) use the words interchangeably. See also onelook.com.