# I'm throwing down the gauntlet: Poison vs. Venom **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 3, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972 "2012-06-03T21:56:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/21 "2012-06-04T02:14:13Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > I can almost sort of agree with you if you want to put it in those terms. But I still think that if you’re going to call something poisonous, then it would be understandable to assume that it’s not both poisonous _and_ venomous, because if it were, you’d simply call it venomous. I don’t agree. It is 100% correct to call a rattlesnake poisonous. Your position is based on your own original misunderstanding of what the words actually mean. It is certainly not appropriate to falsely “correct” someone for calling a rattlesnake poisonous. Like **Blake** , I find it really annoying when people do so. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/22 "2012-06-04T02:16:40Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > I think polling English speakers on how they use English words is a pretty valid thing to do. It’s not like these words have some objective meaning outside of what native speakers of the language think they do. That said, whether an unscientific poll on the SDMB is indicative of anything or not is a different question.. Whatever validity the poll might have is pretty much negated by the fact that it’s based on a false premise: that poisonous and venomous are two separate categories, rather than overlapping ones. ---
**Author:** ![desertr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/919ad9/32.png) [@desertr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/desertr)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/23 "2012-06-04T02:17:35Z")
oh comeon. I mean, lay down your soul to the gods rocknroll. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/24 "2012-06-04T02:19:31Z")
Team venom, but only reluctantly, and with the fervent wish that pedants would just STFU. Yes, you’re right. We know that. Fine. Why don’t you go diagram sentences somewhere, and let the rest of us communicate. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/25 "2012-06-04T03:01:56Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I don’t agree. It is 100% correct to call a rattlesnake poisonous. Your position is based on your own original misunderstanding of what the words actually mean. It is certainly not appropriate to falsely “correct” someone for calling a rattlesnake poisonous. Like **Blake** , I find it really annoying when people do so. A-freakin-men. Every person in the english speaking world knows what is meant by the term “poisonous snake”. This is one of the dumbest bits of nitpickery on a board that is particularly known for really pointless nitpickery. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/26 "2012-06-04T03:06:41Z")
I wish we could get something critical of the supposed new word “antivenom” (sic) here. You fight venom with antivenin. Likewise ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/27 "2012-06-04T03:10:48Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > You’re only saying that because you’re losing. 😛 I doubt it, he’s probably saying it because, if as he says, it’s a common inaccuracy proving that a lot of people here also have this inaccurate belief does nothing to support your argument. In fact I find your decision to run a poll on this to be pretty piss poor, because if you really wanted a discussion about the facts you wouldn’t have put a poll up there as some sort of bullshit “evidence” that your side was correct. What’s really important to note is the original pedantry you engaged in was factually wrong, and thus makes you look foolish to have done it. It is essentially inarguable fact that a rattlesnake is poisonous, and you said that was not an appropriate term. You’re factually wrong there. On the issue of whether all poisons and venoms can be referred to interchangeably I have no real side in that fight. In personal usage I’d only use venom to refer to poison produced and delivered by animals, but the dictionary definition points to a lot more ambiguity on that matter. What’s really important to note is when you said this: > [@Is a rattlesnake bite always/usually fatal?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-rattlesnake-bite-always-usually-fatal/623913/13): > > ULTRA-PEDANTRY ALERT! > > Snakes are not poisonous, they are venomous. Poison is ingested/absorbed/inhaled, while venom is injected via bite or sting. You were **100%, unambiguously and factually incorrect, period.** So I’m not too impressed that after having your hand smacked (after making a self-identified pedantic comment) you’ve decided to start a poll to try and disprove **Blake**. That’s actually mildly embarrassing I think, because you were quite honestly making a bald-faced factual assertion that snakes are not poisonous, and I think some degree of embarrassment over being called out on how wrong you were on that count is the reason you decided to keep arguing over the sideshow about whether the word poison and venom are more generally interchangeable and then decided to open up a poll. I think you highly suspected that most people share the common (and probably incorrect as demonstrated by **Blake** and **Colibri** ) belief that you were putting forth so you figured a poll would help you out. While I have more faith in the Dope, I’m willing to bet that in society at large I could make the argument “did you know blood is blue inside the body?” and probably take a random poll of 10 people in the street and have a majority agree with me. That doesn’t prove that blood is blue, just that a majority of people believe a very stupid and very old inaccuracy that has perpetuated for decades. That isn’t how one proves one’s point. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/28 "2012-06-04T03:15:19Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > I think polling English speakers on how they use English words is a pretty valid thing to do. It’s not like these words have some objective meaning outside of what native speakers of the language think they do. That said, whether an unscientific poll on the SDMB is indicative of anything or not is a different question.. I think it is valid in context, if you want to know “what is the most common usage of these words” then polling is very important. The dictionary often has tons of different usages for different words, in this case with the two words in question several dictionaries have 4-5 different meanings and some of these meanings wholly overlap with one another. If we wanted to have a discussion about what is “most common usage”, then fine. But mind this all came from another thread where someone called a rattlesnake poisonous and the OP of this thread made a very blatant **factual assertion** that it is **factually incorrect** to call a rattlesnake (or any snake) poisonous. That’s just incorrect, period. At very best the closest we could factually say is that “in common usage most people say a rattlesnake is venomous instead of poisonous” but that still would not make his original intrusion into that thread correct, because he factually proclaimed with “false authority” that you can **never** refer to a snake as poisonous without being incorrect in word usage. While the evidence isn’t clear on what “common usage” for these two words might be, the evidence is clear anyone asserting that it is **wrong** to call a snake poisonous is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Universe\_Lashes\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8797f3/32.png) [@The\_Universe\_Lashes\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Universe_Lashes_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/29 "2012-06-04T03:17:32Z")
I couldn’t vote for either option. There is a difference between the two words, but if someone says they saw a poisonous snake, everyone knows what they mean. They are interchangeable in that context, but sometimes they are not. You can’t say a mushroom is venomous. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/30 "2012-06-04T03:17:34Z")
Difficult to answer, as the poll is phrased. There _is_ a meaningful and distinct difference between venom and poison. That said, venom _is_ poison - just a narrower category. Hell, the Latin for “poison” is “venenum.” ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/31 "2012-06-04T03:22:20Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > . . . You were \*\*100%, unambiguously and factually incorrect, period. . . . Huh? All rattlesnakes are poisonous? Dude, I’ve eaten rattlesnake lots of times, and never was poisoned. You’re wrong when you say the claim is “100%” wrong. It wasn’t. At worst, it was proportionally, conditionally, contextually wrong. (You aren’t “100%” wrong either. But you’re more wrong than he was.) ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/32 "2012-06-04T03:43:27Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Huh? All rattlesnakes are poisonous? Dude, I’ve eaten rattlesnake lots of times, and never was poisoned. > > You’re wrong when you say the claim is “100%” wrong. It wasn’t. At worst, it was proportionally, conditionally, contextually wrong. > > (You aren’t “100%” wrong either. But you’re more wrong than he was.) I think you’re confused. He said “snakes are not poisonous.” In the context of the thread he was saying “it is incorrect to refer to rattlesnakes as poisonous.” He was 100% wrong in that claim, and the fact that you can eat a rattlesnake without getting poisoned doesn’t change that in the least. Because his claim was that you can **never** correctly refer to a snake as poisonous. By me saying he was 100% wrong, that’s what I was saying–it is 100% wrong to put forth the idea that it is incorrect to refer to snakes as poisonous. If you disagree with that, then you are wrong. It is not as a **general rule** incorrect to refer to a snake as being a poisonous animal (depending on the snake and the context.) Now, I never actually said “all rattlesnakes are poisonous.” In fact the section of my post you quoted and the section I think you were objecting to seem a bit out of sync, I suspect this is what triggered your attention: > [@](#): > > It is essentially inarguable fact that a rattlesnake is poisonous, and you said that was not an appropriate term. Note that I’m **not** saying every potential interaction with a rattlesnake will poison you. When someone says “a rattlesnake is a poisonous snake” they are not saying " it’s an animal whose flesh is poison to humans." Could they be saying that? Sure, and that would be incorrect use of the term poisonous. But if they are using that term to mean “a rattlesnake is a snake that can poison humans by biting them”, then that is correct use of the term. So essentially unless you’re rejecting the dictionary definitions **Colibri** has pasted, demonstrating that it’s perfectly valid usage to refer to a snake that can deliver poison with its bite as “poisonous” then it isn’t incorrect for me to say “all rattlesnakes are poisonous.” It’d be incorrect if I said “all rattlesnakes are poisonous in all situations and context”, but that is not what I said. Context is important. I could say “chocolate candies are poisonous” and if I was in a discussion about diets for dogs, I would be correct. If I was talking about for human beings, I would be incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/33 "2012-06-04T05:05:49Z")
And yet (bolding mine), > [@](#): > > List of venomous animals > From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia > **Not to be confused with List of poisonous animals**. > > Venomous animals include: and their > [@](#): > > List of poisonous animals > From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia > > Not to be confused with List of venomous animals Wait for it does not include any snakes. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/34 "2012-06-04T05:34:39Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > And yet (bolding mine), > > \ > > and their > > \ > > Wait for it > > does not include any snakes. Not to mention the [article on venom](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venom), which I originally quoted as one of my citations: > [@](#): > > Venom is the general term referring to any variety of toxins[1] used by certain types of animals that inject it into their victims by the means of a bite, sting or other sharp body feature.[2] **Unlike poison, which is ingested or inhaled** , administration of venom is usually directed into the lymphatic system itself for faster action. (my bolding) There is no ambiguity here whatsoever. The people arguing that I’m wrong are completely fucking wrong. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/35 "2012-06-04T05:59:31Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > A-freakin-men. Every person in the english speaking world knows what is meant by the term “poisonous snake”. This is one of the dumbest bits of nitpickery on a board that is particularly known for really pointless nitpickery. You are one of new favorite posters. I agree with **Martin Hyde** , too. ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/36 "2012-06-04T06:09:02Z")
There are actually people stupid enough to care about some nonexistent, artificial distinction between “poison” and “venom”? I would laugh but I’m sort of sad to be laughing about something so goddamn stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/37 "2012-06-04T06:16:33Z")
What I would say is that venom is “a poison produced as a biological weapon” (the poison from a snake or spider), whereas poison is a more general term. HCN and its salts are poisons but not venoms. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/38 "2012-06-04T06:40:59Z")
> [@mister\_nyx](#): > > There are actually people stupid enough to care about some nonexistent, artificial distinction between “poison” and “venom”? I would laugh but I’m sort of sad to be laughing about something so goddamn stupid. Think of it this way: if you’re poisoned, you’ve allowed that into your body somehow. Granted, if you’re mustard gassed, breathing it in vs. not breathing at all doesn’t seem like much of a choice, but from a philosophical standpoint you still accepted the poison into your body by taking a breath. Likewise, if an assassin poisons your drink, though you drink it without realizing it was poisoned, you still drank it voluntarily. And licking a poisonous frog is definitely a choice. 😛 But if you’re envenomed, that involves penetration - it’s a lot more like rape. The perpetrator just sticks its fucking thing into you and shoots off its wad whether you like it or not. So following from that, by refusing to acknowledge the distinction you’re basically condoning rape\*. And that means the terrorists have already won. \*for the sarcasm-impaired: this is a joke. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/39 "2012-06-04T07:10:12Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > A-freakin-men. Every person in the english speaking world knows what is meant by the term “poisonous snake”. This is one of the dumbest bits of nitpickery on a board that is particularly known for really pointless nitpickery. I don’t disagree that people know what you mean if you use the term poisonous instead of venomous, but that doesn’t mean that the distinction doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972/40 "2012-06-04T10:17:51Z")
I really don’t get why you guys, **Colibri** especially, think that something that is a basic part of the biology you would learn in junior high, if not earlier, is so completely meaningless. Common usage is not nearly as relevant as expert usage, and all the texts I’ve seen refer to snakes as venomous, not poisonous. It’s actually one of the rare cases where I will come out and say common usage is wrong. That said, I voted they were different because poison and venom are different things, per **Nava** above. Why in the world doesn’t the OP ask about about poisonous vs. venomous? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-throwing-down-the-gauntlet-poison-vs-venom/623972.md?page=3)