potion

From Middle English pocioun, borrowed from Old French pocion, from Latin pōtiō (“a drinking”), pōtiōnis, from pōtāre (“to drink”). Doublet of poison.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pəʊ.ʃən/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpoʊ.ʃən/
• Rhymes: -əʊʃən

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

potion (plural potions)

1. A small portion or dose of a liquid which is medicinal, poisonous, or magical.

   He hoped to win the princess's heart by mixing the love potion the witch gave him into her drink.

• lib (Britain dialectal, Scotland)

potion (third-person singular simple present potions, present participle potioning, simple past and past participle potioned)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To drug (someone).
   • 1611, Iohn Speed [i.e., John Speed], “Edward the Second, […]”, in The History of Great Britaine under the Conquests of yͤ Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans. […], London: […] William Hall and John Beale, for John Sudbury and George Humble, […], →OCLC, book IX ([Englands Monarchs] […]), paragraph 49, page 561, column 1:

     [T]he yong L. Roger Mortimer, […] hauing corrupted his Keepers, or (as ſome others vvrite) hauing potioned them vvith a ſleepy drinke, eſcaped out of the Tovver of London, getting ouer clearely vvithout any empeachment into France.

• option

Borrowed from Latin pōtiōnem. Doublet of poison, which was inherited.

• IPA^(key): /pɔ.sjɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

potion f (plural potions)

1. potion

• philtre

• “potion”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.