User synonym "poisoned" for 有毒 ("poisonous") not accepted

It seems like my user synonym wasn’t accepted for 有毒. The correct definition is “poisonous” and I had “poisoned”. I believe I added the synonym a little while back when I got it wrong the first time. But on the second time around, it was marked wrong again. Am I doing something wrong?

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Some user synonyms are blacklisted, often times because they are specifically incorrect. That might be what’s happening here.

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In this case my guess is it’s blacklisted because 有毒 is what the poisonous toad is; it doesn’t apply to the person who licks the toad, who is merely poisoned…

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“Poisoned” for 有毒 is specifically blocked according to the API:

  "auxiliary_meanings": [
    {
      "type": "blacklist",
      "meaning": "Poisoning"
    },
    {
      "type": "blacklist",
      "meaning": "Poisoned"
    }
  ],
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Ah, got it. I don’t know if I fully get the difference in nuance (I suppose “poisoned” implies intent? Or like @pm215 mentioned, it can be read as “victim of poisoning”) but at least I understand a little better how the various checks work behind the scenes. Thanks so much for the help everyone!

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Poisonous is an adjective. Poisoned is a past tense verb. The main point here is that you can’t use 有毒 as if it was a verb.

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Ah, thanks for chiming in @ekg! Hmm, I see what you mean but I don’t fully agree. It’s true “poisoned” is the past tense of “to poison”, but it is also the past participle, and often used as an adjective, e.g. “A poisoned drink”. I’m wondering if the reasoning could be that “poisoned” implies that there was some intent to make something poisonous, as opposed to something being toxic by default. That distinction would make sense to me.

Let me know if I’m misunderstanding your comment :slight_smile:

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I think that’s my fault:

I stand by this decisssssion. :snake:

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It appears that poison can be both, to harm with poison, and to envenom.

1. To kill or harm with poison.
2. To put poison on or into: poisoning arrows; poisoned the drink.

Then, I would usually think of poisoned as a past participle no matter whether it is a poisoned drink, or a poisoned person. (Higher in my thought that past tense.)

It seems that this one is 毒入(どくい)り, so a little different.


Anyway, a poisonous toad generally isn’t poisoned. It is naturally born that way.

I wonder will a toad die when poisoned?

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I think @polv clarified things well. Poisonous is an adjective used to describe the intrinsic aspect of some animals and plants (or things, chemicals etc).

And as @polv states, to express something “being poisoned/become poisoned” you can’t use 有毒, that’s 毒入(どくい)り. So, you just have to separate those things in your mind as in Japanese, they are not the same and can’t be used in the same way.

So, think less about English translations that are just approximations in the end, but recognize that Japanese make these two different language concepts/uses.

I know some animals consume poisonous things and then store the poison in their own body, as a defense. So, I guess, it depends on the poison? ^^’ (also, whether toads/frogs can do this)

A poisoned frog and a poisonous frog are two very different things. XD

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Something that helps me remember the distinction with this one is to think of 有毒 as “has poison”. It’s a word that refers to the quality of containing poison (“毒を含んでいること” as my monolingual dictionary defines it).

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With the caveat that I’m not a native English speaker, the problem is that IMHO you’re more likely to say “a poisonous snake” but “a poisoned drink” (does “poisonous drink” even work? not sure). But they both mean “something that contains poison”. I feel like the distinction some people have drawn here, between poisonous = intrinsic, poisoned = acquired might be the right explanation.

On the other hand, if a person gets bitten by a poisonous snake or drinks a poisoned drink, then they are themselves poisoned, but now that word refers to a living being that is affected by poison.

I get the feeling that 有毒 strictly refers to the first use case and not the second, but I’m not sure if it draws the “inherent” vs. “acquired” distinction. So it could end up being that 有毒 can mean “poisoned”, but only in specific contexts and not others. But I can’t say if that’s the case.

Whether that’s a good reason to add it to the blacklist… I don’t know. In general I’m not sure you should worry about nuance too much when SRSing and leave that for when you encounter the words in native material.

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Here’s the full definition that my monolingual dictionary gives for it:

(名・形動ダ)毒を含んでいること。毒性があること。また、そのさま。「―ガス」「―な植物」
⇔無毒

So, “containing poison” and “having a poisonous nature” (毒性 is defined as “有毒な性質”) are both included.

I think “poisoned” is misleading because even though a “poisoned drink” is almost certainly also poisonous, as an adjective, “poisoned” refers to “something that has had the action of poisoning applied to it”, which is different from “contains poison” or “is poisonous”.

Someone who has been poisoned might themself be poisonous for another creature to consume, haha.

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It doesn’t help much unless we try to translate the second phrase of “poisoned drink”. Maybe, 毒された飲み物 or 毒入り飲み物.   有毒な飲み物 might work, but I don’t think this one is translated exactly.

この飲み物は有毒だ might be just right, though.

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There is no such thing as a poisonous snake

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Few are

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Except your lips which, no matter the dose, are venomous poison.

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Hard agree on the verb vs adjective distinction.

Poisoned drink- describes the action, the drink was poisoned by someone (intent). You could say the drink has BECOME poisonous as a result of being poisoned- but it didn’t start that way.
Poisonous drink- the drink is poisonous. No intent, simply description. Maybe it was poisoned, maybe it is just naturally poisonous. It just simply is.

Living creatures defs make this more complex though.