Poison

Poison is a word with multiple definitions, it can be a noun, a verb, or adjective. It is also a synonym of venom & toxin. Poisoning is a condition leading to game over deaths in the games.

Background

Graham discovered a fat, speckled mushroom on the Mushroom Isle, which grew not far from the river, large and alone. It looked like no poison fungus Graham had ever studied, so he picked it; it could be food, or it could be useful. The fresh smell of the mushroom he had picked before he had fallen underground. It, too, smelled fresh and wholesome. It made him hungry. He took a tentative bite of the mushroom, almost positive it wasn't poison, but giving it a taste test to be sure. It turned out to be magical and caused him to shrink, giving him the ability to escape the Land of the Leprechauns.

Graham encountered a poisonous viper blocking his path up on the Top of the Cliffs. The snake appeared to be about ten feet long. It was coiled and ready to strike. Upon throwing a bridle on it it turned into a flying horse, the mythical Pegasus, who gave him a magic sugar cube.

Graham encountered another large, "poisonous" and 'venomous' snake in Serenia, a land known for having many snakes.

The Poisoned Lake gets its name because the lake water is poisonous. People are warned to not drink it or swim in it, for the lake is toxic. The lake is so poisonous that a stray splash is fatal. Graham guessed the water was poisoned, or worse. Those who succumb to it die of extreme poisoning. The lake is foul and stinking, and all vegetation looks dead around it. Even the trees around the poisoned lake are dead. The bushes are nothing but leafless dry sticks. Not even flowers can grow near the lake. In the middle of the lake is an island... There are no bushes on the island. Only poisoned brambles and thorns. The brambles are covered with poisoned spiked thorns that mean instant death to anyone punctured by one. The magic sugar cube could guard against poison brambles, but not the poisoned lake itself.

Alexander created the 'poisoned porridge' by putting Cat Cookie inside of the bowl of porridge. He crumbled the cookie into the porridge. The porridge was then poisoned. Alexander placed the poisoned porridge in front of Manannan, the greedy wizard scarfed it down and turned into a cat.

In the Swamp of Tamir, Rosella saw a very large poisonous snake, a cobra, that seemed to guard the tree. One of the most dangerous of vipers, the King Cobra. Such a snake is most fearsome and deadly. They can hold at bay, frighten, or attack most mortal creatures quickly and with a most mortal effect. Some beings are impervious to the cobra's venom, and creatures much larger than the human can withstand the effects of the poison longer. Cobras can strike with poisonous swiftness Mongooses are kept as pets by some because of their docile natures, except when it comes to rats and poisonous snakes. These are the natural prey of mongooses, and they will attack and kill these creatures whenever they come across them. So it is for this reason that they are kept and treasured in domains much afflicted by the above. Snake poisoning is a very painful death.

The dark belly of the beastly whale, was filled poisonous fumes, from the stomach acid.

The Flying Sting is a fleshless flying monstrosity armed with a curving poison stinger that kills horribly at a touch. No cure is known for its poison, and the death throes and agonies of its victims brand burningly into one's nightmares after merely reading of them. The sting uncurls as quick as sudden death, outward to its target spewing its ample poison in deadly drops as it does. Death comes with certainty, though neither easy nor quick. It is not a huge scorpion with wings; it is much worse. Even the very aroma of the Sting is enough to kill a human if breathed very deeply, or for very long.

Poison nightshade is a dangerous plant, even possibly dangerous if rubbed onto the body directly.Mandrake root and the powder made from it is more than a little poisonous. Eating it will cause a person to die in excruciating pain. Alexander is not an expert on poisonous mushrooms.

Alexander once acted like he took poison to trick the genie into thinking he committed suicide.

Alexander met the Black Widow spider in the Green Isles. Her husbands would feel the tiny prick of her bite, and slow burning of her poison. Valanice came across another bloated red spider in Eldritch. It was walking across it's web toward a hummingbird, dwarfing it in size. She tried to free the bird before the spider could harm it, but the bird screamed a warning about the spider's lethal venom. Although Valanice was afraid of spider, after all the bird had said it was poisonous, she couldn't walk away and let the spider kill the hummingbird, either.

The three-toed variety of slok isn‘t poisonous. Rosella learned this fact from the Cyclopedia, Fourth edition.

Most weevils are not poisonous. However, Entomon Wilson's wandering weevils have a poison unlike any seen in Daventry. The poison is in the jaws of the warrior weevil caste. They bite onto enemies and pump poison into their veins. With lack of an antidote, the poison has work its way out of ones system on its own, or it will kill them. Luckily the cyclopedia contains a lot of knowledge of how to defeat the weevil poison. The warrior weevils use a tetrodotoxin (C₁₁H₁₇N₃O₈) often found in the newts of Sirenia, and toads near the Sea of Barnacles. The toxin blocks nerve conduction by suppressing... Antidotes to tetrodotoxin include stimulants such as Eidolon Eiger's Tea of Thyme or Zorobia's Potion Number Eleven have been shown to have some effect. Other stimulants may have some beneficial effect, but no entries exist concerning any clinical trials. Three drops of Grafton George’s Spirit Revitalizer also turned out to be effective.

Poisoned apples can kill humans and boars. Three times did the queen try to kill Snow White. She would dress as an old woman and go to the house in the woods and give the sweet girl something fatal. The first time it was ribbons to choke her, the second, a poisoned comb. Both times though the dwarfs returned in time to save the girl. On the third occasion Snow White was given a poisoned apple, which she bit into and died. The grieving dwarfs placed her body in a glass coffin and put the coffin in the prettiest part of the woods. The coffin was found by a young prince Charming, who was smitten by the dead girl's beauty. He told his servants to carry the coffin back to his palace, but as they picked it up, one of them stumbled and jarred the coffin. The shock dislodged the piece of poisoned apple from Snow White's throat, and she came back to life. Then they journeyed to his palace and were married.

Lolotte was so evil that when pure love entered her body, it acted as a poison to her system.

A wicked swamp witch slithered of a pond in Daventry, snatched a unicorn's horn whilst she was bewildered from the effects of the horrible tempest. She even fouled the water with her deadly poison. She also poisoned The Swamp, and it had to be purified with a Golden Ladle.

The blood from Medusa's left side was poison, and the blood from her right could restore dead to life.

Silver and garlic are deadly poisons to vampires and Lizard Folk.

Laburnum were known to poison the well if they didn't get their sacrifices.

See also

• Venom
• Toxin
• Bane
• Noxious
• Miasma
• Contagion
• Plague
• Pestilence

Behind the scenes

Poisonous snakes are not uncommon in fairy tales and classic literature from which King's Quest is inspired. Be it from 'poisoning' via venom or snakes being poisonous to eat. See Mohammed with the Magic Finger, The Story of Zoulvisia, or The Snake Prince: in Andrew Lang's Fairy Books. See also Oleg: the Prince Who Was Killed by His Favorite Horse and Charlegmagne and the Snake. The Twelve Brothers in Grimm's Fairy Tales. Sinbad had to deal with poisonous snakes as well., and the story of Riki Tiki Tavi. The use of 'poisonous' to describe snakes and other creatures with venom appears commonly in Gothic literature as well; In The Adventure of the Speckled Band the titular band is a 'poisonous snake', which Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson discover as the weapon in a crime.. In Bram Stoker's The Lair of the White Worm the worm in question is yet another 'poisonous snake' (not even a beneficial white snake), venomous only appears once but more as a description of malevolence (rather than literal venom). Even Dracula is said to be poisonous or spread poison to his victims through his bite and blood. Poisonous snakes also appear in the writings of H. P. Lovecraft as well. Even the King James Bible uses poisonous/poison when referring to various kinds of poisonous snakes (only uses 'venom' once in one context as synonym of poison). Poisonous Snake is also a common DND creature as well (a 'tiny beast'). Notably speaking during middle ages, medieval, dark ages, and early renaissance, poison and venom were interchangeable terms, and venom even came from the Latin word for poison: 'venenum' (both largely having link to 'potions' and 'imbibing'). So the usage of the 'literary' "poisonous" seems rather fitting (its not a zoology or veterinary textbook, its a 'high fantasy/fairy tale game').

The narrator calls the snake in KQ5, a venomous snake, and Cedric calls it poisonous. Earlier games often refer to 'poisonous snakes' as well as 'venomous snakes' (poisonous viper/venomous viper). KQ3 and KQ6 refers to poisonous spiders (KQ7 refers to poisonous/venomous spiders). There is a pedantic internet discussion of 'venomous vs. poisonous' which is a controversy, but in reality should be only a non-controversy. Some have accused Roberta Williams of being unintelligent or ignorant for use of these terms in the games... But they themselves overlook other grammatically valid uses of the terms in other contexts, medical field and other fields of sciences.

In fact to argue there is only a 'single' definition for words, and that other definitions are wrong is an example of a false dichotomy fallacy; Two choices are presented, when more might exist, and the claim is made that one is false and one is true - or one is acceptable and the other is not. Often, there are other alternatives which haven’t been considered, or both choices might be false or true. As well as an "Appeal to Definition" fallacy (Using one definition of a term as evidence that term cannot have another meaning, expanded meaning, or even conflicting meaning).

In modern "biological" (Some biological medicine, particularly veterinary and zoology often distinguish a poison from a toxin, and from a venom) and most modern "herpetology" (not necessarily medical or other science fields), these are used as forms of how the toxin is administered. Poisonous referring to touching or ingestion, while venomous refers to injection, and the argument there is no overlap (each being a totally different kind of 'substance'). However, other fields (medical and other science fields) argue that that venom is a subset of poisons, and so poisonous is technically true, while those of the other school of thought; argue that makes the definition of poison too broad, and that having more specific meanings for different terms is more useful. This is seemingly a more modern argument however found in the 21st century, as many nature and even some 'science' books from the 1500s-1990s used 'poisonous', and 'poisonous' also appears in poetic or literary usages even within the Bible and William Shakespeare.

Thanks for that. The adult snake lies in the ditch. The young snake that escaped will in time become poisonous and threatening, but for now he has no fangs. Get out of here. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow.-Macbeth

Paracelsus expressed the classic toxicology maxim "All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison." This is often condensed to: "The dose makes the poison" or in Latin, "Sola dosis facit venenum".

Jan Freeman’s research into it in her book Write it Right.... About this issue, she writes:

“As usual, Bierce would like to fence the overlapping words into separate pens. But while venomous does describe rattlesnakes and other animals that poison victims with a bite or sting, poisonous has always been a broader term. Samuel Johnson knew both words, but in his Dictionary (1755) he referred to ‘a poisonous serpent,’ ‘a poisonous insect,’ and ‘a poisonous reptile.'”

It’s not just Johnson, either. The Oxford English Dictionary cites The Indian Queen, a play by Robert Howard and John Dryden (he of “no final prepositions” fame), with “poisonous Vipers” in 1665. Google Books can supply you a vast array of hits for “poisonous snakes” from the 1800s, if you need convincing of the lineage. Here’s my favorite, as it’s very clearly talking about snakes with venomous bites; it’s written by someone studying the venom of the snakes, so this isn’t some casual imprecise usage but the considered usage of a professional; and it’s from 1839, so there’s no arguing that this is some sloppy modern usage.

In the case of venomous and poisonous, this oughtn’t to be surprising, as their stems have this same relationship. A venom is one kind of poison, and similarly, being venomous is one way that an animal can be poisonous. The biggest clue that we aren’t all wrong for using poisonous in place of venomous is that it’s very rare to see the opposite extension. When people talk about “venomous plants”, for instance, they’re usually talking about plants that literally do sting, like stinging nettles or the gympie gympie. If people are just stupid or underinformed, they ought to make their errors symmetrically; here, the supposed error really only goes one way. (I’d expect asymmetric errors if one were much rarer than the other, but venomous isn’t particularly rare.)

Venom is defined in the medical sense:

"venom (ven´әm) a poison, especially one secreted by a serpent, insect, or other animal. adj., ven´omous., adj.

The act of dieing from snake venom is known as "Snake poisoning" or "snake venom poisoning", which is another indication that 'poisonous snake' is not incorrect by certain definitions of poison.

Findlay Russell, MD PhD, in his introduction to the chapter on “Toxic Effects of Animal Venoms” in Casarett and Doull’s Toxicology: The Basic Science of Poisons states:

“The term venomous animal is usually applied to those creatures that are capable of producing a poison in a highly developed secretory gland or group of cells and that can deliver this toxin during a biting or stinging act. Poisonous animals, on the other hand, are generally regarded to be those whose tissues, either in part or in their entirety, are toxic. These animals have no mechanism or structure for the delivery of their poisons. Poisoning by these forms usually takes place through ingestion. In reality, all venemous animals are poisonous, but not all poisonous animals are venemous.”

Note: Even most dictionaries outside of very specific biology textbooks don't make a designated difference between "poison" and "venom", with additional caveat, that all 'venoms' are poisonous, but not all poisons are 'venom'.

Though there may have been ancient differences between the two in earliest definitions, but lost over time (later resurrected by modern biologists). In Latin, venēmum meant "magical herb, poison, etc". From a thesaurus perspective "venom" and "poison' are synonyms (one of two or more words or expressions of the same language that have the same or nearly the same meaning in some or all senses).

synonym study for poison

1. Poison, toxin, venom are terms for any substance that injures the health or destroys life when absorbed into the system, especially of a higher animal. Poison is the general word: a poison for insects. A toxin is a poison produced by an organism; it is especially used in medicine in reference to disease-causing bacterial secretions: A toxin produces diphtheria. Venom is especially used of the poisons secreted by certain animals, usually injected by bite or sting: the venom of a snake.

To be too pedantic about the 'definition' is to overlook other definitions found in the same language (every word in English language often has more than one 'common' 'definition'). For example definition of 'vegetable' has 'culinary' uses and 'scientific/'technical uses'. A tomato or cucumbers may be a technical "fruits", but is a 'culinary' vegetables as they are often used in 'savory' vegetable dishes and salads.

Also definitions of "poison' are split into three types... Noun, Verb & Adjective. In the case of "adjective" poison and venom have the same meaning. The root word for both poison and venom, "poi" and "wen" both originally had to do with 'injesting' or 'drinking' such as in potions.

The respective IE roots of the terms "venom" and "poison", "wen" and "poi" refer to desire or the act of ingesting liquids. The origin of the term, "venom", is associated with polytheistic cults that emphasized attainment of desires sometimes assisted by "love potions", a term later interpolated with the word, "poison". Specific interpretation of the term, venom, has varied since its first probable use in the mid-Thirteenth Century

The act of receiving venom, aka envenoming, means to 'make poisonous', to be 'poisoned'.. Envenomation is the proper term which means 'an act of instance poisoning by venom (as by snake or spider)'. Oxford Dictionary defines envenomate's definition as "Zoology Medicine: (of a snake, spider, insect, etc.) poison by biting or stinging." So literally speaking in the round about way, a snake that has envenomed its prey or victim through envenomation has poisoned its victim with venom. Calling something venomous or poisonous (i.e. 'venomous snake' or 'poisonous snake') at that point is semantics.

Outside of technical biology and herpetology field textbooks, there are many medical texts and journal articles which refer to 'technical terms' of 'snake poisoning'/'poisonous snakes' It is 'Poison Control Centers/Poison Centers' that treat venomous bites.

In conclusion, poison is a toxin that gets into the body via swallowing, inhaling or absorption through the skin. ... Venom is a specialized type of poison that has evolved for a specific purpose. It is actively injected via a bite or sting. In other words poisons and venoms are both toxins, and venom is a type of poison. As noted venom comes from the Latin word for "poison".

Summary: Poisonous and venomous aren’t totally distinct. It’s fine to call a snake poisonous, even if it’s its venom that’s dangerous. But it’s rare (and generally incorrect) to call something with a non-venom poison venomous. This is how it has been for hundreds of years in English. Objections to the subset relationship between poisonous and venomous are pretty rare, and outside of specialized contexts, pretty unfounded.

Besides, its more than a little insane to focus on such a pedantic nitpick in a literary and fantasy setting. It shouldn't have to be pointed out that we are discussing fantasy medieval settings (where such literary, and poetic language are generally used) not zoology lab environment, and a language (English) that has more than one meaning (and overlapping definitions), and where even science and medical textbooks are not that pedantic or specific. One will find this same situation in Quest for Glory as well, where most 'poison'/'venom' are used interchangeably, and most 'poisoning' comes from creatures or monsters with venom. It contains its fair share of 'poisonous spiders (and poisonous bat-spiders...)'/'poisonous bugs'/'poisonous scorpions'/'poisonous snakes (flying snakes at that)'/'poisonous fish'/'poisonous wyverns'/'poisonous demons', and 'poisonous plants (venomous and poisonous)'. Where there is no, "anti-venom", but "poison cure' (pills and potions) are a 'universal poison antidote'. Poisonous snakes (see cobras) and 'poisonous rats', also appear in Conquests of Camelot as well in the desert and in catacombs. Poison is only curable via an elixer. Laura Bow II mentions both poisonous snakes, and venomous snakes.