根據英語詞源詞典的解釋：
poison起源與potion有關，而potion主要表示各種藥劑，藥水。所以poison通常是指壹種有毒的液態藥劑，壹種“喝的東西”（a potion, poisonous drink）
~ Middle English, from Anglo-French poisun drink, potion, poison, from Latin potion-, potio drink
補美國傳統詞典解釋：
The phrasepoison potion besides being alliterative also consists of doublets, that is, two words that go back ultimately to the same source in another language.The source for both words is Latinp?ti?, which meant “the act of drinking, a drink, or a liquid dose, as of a medicine or poison.”Our wordpotion retains the form of the Latin word (actually the form of the stem p?ti?n- ) and the “dose” sense, although it passed through Old French (pocion ) on its way to Middle English ( pocion ), first recorded in a work composed around 1300.In Old Frenchpocion is a learned borrowing, one that was deliberately taken from Latin in a form corresponding to the Latin form.But the Latin word had also passed through Vulgar Latin into Old French in the different formpoison. This word meant “beverage,” “liquid dose,” and also “poison beverage, poison.”The wordpoison is first recorded in Middle English in a work composed around 1200.
Poison potion 這壹詞組除了押頭韻外還是由同源異形詞構成的， 也就是兩詞最終可歸結到另壹種語言中的同壹本源。這兩個詞的來源都是拉丁詞potio , 意為“喝的行為、壹種飲品或壹定的液體劑量，如藥或毒藥。”我們今天所使用的potion 保留了這壹拉丁詞的形式（實際上是詞幹 potion- 的形式）和“藥劑”的意思， 雖然它是經由古法語（pocion ）傳入中古英語的（ pocion ）， 該中古英語記錄最早見於1300年左右著成的壹部著作中。在古法語中pocion 是壹個學術性的借詞， 該詞是以壹種和其拉丁文形式對應的形式主動從拉丁文中借用的。但這壹拉丁詞也已經以另壹種形式通過俗拉丁語，即poison ，傳入古法語。 這個詞意為“飲料、”“液體劑量”以及“毒性的飲料、毒藥。”Poison 這個詞最早是在壹部大約在1200年寫成的著作中記進中古英語的。