Potional
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Of or relating to potions. not-comparable, rare
"To the question, ‘What [is] the person killed?’ is written the reply: / It must be a person in rerum natura. If a woman quick with child take a potion to kill it, and accordingly it is destroyed without being born alive, a great misprision, but no felony; but if born alive, and after dies of that potion, it is murder. […] In contrast to cl. 1 it prohibited attempts to procure abortion before quickening, and its prohibition on potional abortion embraced ‘any medicines, drug, or other substance or thing whatsoever’. […] As early as 1810, Ellenborough’s Act was criticised by the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal for failing to prohibit instrumental abortion after quickening, while punishing with death the use of potional means, which were less effective. […] Again, in 1846 Taylor’s Manual of Medical Jurisprudence, referring to potional abortion, stated that it could not be doubted that the crime was very frequent, adding: ‘Applications are continually made to druggists by the lower classes for drugs for this purpose.[…]’. […] Similarly, the words ‘or other noxious and destructive substance or thing’ in cl. 1 would appear to be confined to potional methods."
Example
More examples"To the question, ‘What [is] the person killed?’ is written the reply: / It must be a person in rerum natura. If a woman quick with child take a potion to kill it, and accordingly it is destroyed without being born alive, a great misprision, but no felony; but if born alive, and after dies of that potion, it is murder. […] In contrast to cl. 1 it prohibited attempts to procure abortion before quickening, and its prohibition on potional abortion embraced ‘any medicines, drug, or other substance or thing whatsoever’. […] As early as 1810, Ellenborough’s Act was criticised by the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal for failing to prohibit instrumental abortion after quickening, while punishing with death the use of potional means, which were less effective. […] Again, in 1846 Taylor’s Manual of Medical Jurisprudence, referring to potional abortion, stated that it could not be doubted that the crime was very frequent, adding: ‘Applications are continually made to druggists by the lower classes for drugs for this purpose.[…]’. […] Similarly, the words ‘or other noxious and destructive substance or thing’ in cl. 1 would appear to be confined to potional methods."
Etymology
From potion + -al.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.