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PlainSpell

venom

/ˈvɛnəm/noun

venom is a noun meaning “An animal toxin intended for defensive or offensive use; a biological poison delivered by bite, sting, etc., to protect an animal or to kill its prey” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-E-N-O-M and has 2 syllables, and it appears 3.7 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of venom is venoms.

What does venom mean?

noun

  1. 1

    An animal toxin intended for defensive or offensive use; a biological poison delivered by bite, sting, etc., to protect an animal or to kill its prey.

    The serious artist […] [is] obsessed by his material; it’s like a venom working in his blood and the art is the antidote.

  2. 2

    Feeling or speech marked by spite or malice; vitriol.

verb

  1. 1

    obsoleteTo infect with venom; to envenom; to poison.

adjective

  1. 1

    obsoletePoisonous, poisoned; (figuratively) pernicious.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce venom?

  • /ˈvɛnəm/

Venom has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-venom.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of venom

  • venoms plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • venoming participle, present
  • venomed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is venom?

Venom appears 3.7 times per million words in written English, the 13,496th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Venom in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchvenin (an animal toxin intended for offensive use)
GermanGift (an animal toxin intended for offensive use), Galle ((figurative) malice)
Portuguesepeçonha, veneno (an animal toxin intended for offensive use)
Spanishveneno, tósigo (an animal toxin intended for offensive use), malicia ((figurative) malice)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does venom come from?

From Middle English venym, from Old French venim, from Vulgar Latin *venīmen, from Early Medieval Latin venīnum, from Classical Latin venēnum (“drug; poison; a charm”), ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *wenh₁- (“to love”). Doublet of venin and venene.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).