a. (sb.) [f. med.L. toxic-us poisoned, imbued with poison, f. TOXIC-UM. So F. toxique ‘poison’ (1762 in Dict. Trévoux).]
1. Of the nature of a poison; poisonous.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva, 65. The toxic quality was certainly in the liquor…, not in the nature of the wood; which yet he [Pliny] affirms is cur’d of that Venenous quality by driving a brazen wedge into the body of it.
1674. Blount, Glossogr., Toxic, venemous, poisonous.
1876. T. Bryant, Pract. Surg., I. ii. 53. Poisoning … due to the introduction into the torrent of the circulation of toxic substances.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VII. 815. The urine is normally toxic, and incessantly takes from the blood its toxicity.
2. Caused or produced by a poison; due to poisoning.
1872. Contemp. Rev., XX. 751. Whether it be the toxic condition of the blood.
1874. Maudsley, Respons. in Ment. Dis., iii. 79. The peculiar disorders of the physical and mental functions … to which he gave the name of Toxic Insanity.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 310. Toxic insanity depends on poisons either derived from without or generated within the body.
b. Of intoxication, intoxicated, tipsy. humorous.
1899. Mary Kingsley, W. African Stud., i. 2. A toxic state where a man can’t see the holes through a ladder.
B. sb. A toxic substance, a poison.
1890. Spectator, 6 Dec. M. Pasteur … pointing out … that the lymph is really a ‘toxic’ or poison, of terrible energy and unknown effects.
1904. Westm. Gaz., 15 June, 2/1. Alkaloids and toxics, such as chloral, emit the N-rays freely.
