Word.ws English Dictionary

poisoned the well

poisoned the well is the simple past and past participle of poison the well.

Meaning of poison the well

Verb

poison the well (third-person singular simple present poisons the well, present participle poisoning the well, simple past and past participle poisoned the well)

  1. (intransitive) To preemptively raise ad hominem arguments in order to discredit someone.
    Synonyms:
    taint the well
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see poison, the, well.

Questions about poisoned the well

What is poisoned the well the simple past and past participle of?
Poisoned the well is the simple past and past participle of poison the well.

Words near poisoned the well in the dictionary

  1. poisoned chalice
  2. poisoned chalices
  3. poisoned compliment
  4. poisoned pawn
  5. poisoned pawns
  6. poisoned the well
  7. poisoner
  8. poisoners
  9. poisonest
  10. poisoneth
  11. poisonful

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poisoned the well (page history and authors); poison the well (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “poisoned the well.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/poisoned_the_well. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.