strychnine

plural strychnines

1. uncountableusuallychemistryA very toxic, colorless crystalline alkaloid, derived from nux vomica, used as a pesticide.

   […] strychnine is a fairly rapid drug in its action. The symptoms appear from one to two hours after it has been swallowed.

   1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles

   2 more examples

   Only don’t say I didn’t warn you if he burns Green Gables down or puts strychnine in the well—I heard of a case over in New Brunswick where an orphan asylum child did that and the whole family died in fearful agonies.

   1908, L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

   Stepson had always been in remarkable shape, but within hours he was dead. Authorities, upon examining his body, believed that someone he had met while he was out had slipped him a dose of poison, possibly strychnine, which was extremely lethal.

   2021 (originally published 2017, adapted 2021), David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: Adapted for Younger Readers, page 62