POTION

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does potion mean? 

• POTION (noun)
  The noun POTION has 1 sense:

1. a medicinal or magical or poisonous beverage

  Familiarity information: POTION used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POTION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A medicinal or magical or poisonous beverage

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("potion" is a kind of...):

beverage; drink; drinkable; potable (any liquid suitable for drinking)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "potion"):

elixir (a substance believed to cure all ills)

love-philter; love-philtre; love-potion; philter; philtre (a drink credited with magical power; can make the one who takes it love the one who gave it)

 Context examples 

Murder was not tolerated, servants were not slaves, and neither poison nor sleeping potions to be procured, like rhubarb, from every druggist.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Hugo demanded a potion to make Zara adore him, and one to destroy Roderigo.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I slept about eight hours, as I was afterwards assured; and it was no wonder, for the physicians, by the emperor’s order, had mingled a sleepy potion in the hogsheads of wine.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I had long since prepared my tincture; I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale chemists, a large quantity of a particular salt which I knew, from my experiments, to be the last ingredient required; and late one accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow of courage, drank off the potion.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

She hears him coming and hides, sees him put the potions into two cups of wine and bid the timid little servant, "Bear them to the captives in their cells, and tell them I shall come anon."

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Having warbled his thanks and put the potions in his boots, Hugo departed, and Hagar informed the audience that as he had killed a few of her friends in times past, she had cursed him, and intends to thwart his plans, and be revenged on him.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)