Word.ws English Dictionary

poisons the well

poisons the well is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 poisons the well

What is poisons the well the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Poisons the well is the third-person singular simple present indicative of poison the well.

Words near poisons the well in the dictionary

  1. poisonous compliment
  2. poisonously
  3. poisonousness
  4. poisonpie
  5. poisons
  6. poisons the well
  7. poisonsome
  8. poisonvetch
  9. poisonvetches
  10. poisonweed
  11. poisonwood

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poisons 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.

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