Other forms: potions
A potion is a magical drink that works a change — a love potion, a sleeping potion, brew a potion.
It belongs almost entirely to fairy tales, fantasy and games, and it is nearly always in a small bottle. In older English it also meant a medicinal draught, and that is the original sense: potions were medicine before they were magic. Note the related words: a lotion is applied to the skin and a potion is drunk, and both come from Latin verbs for washing and drinking respectively, which is a tidy pair worth remembering.
1nounpotionA magical drink.
“The potion turns whoever drinks it into a bird.”
2nounmedicinalA medicinal drink, in older use.
“The doctor left a potion and no explanation.”
potion is a magical drink.
Latin potio meant a drink or a draught, from potare, to drink — the same root as potable, meaning drinkable, and, by a long route, poison, which was originally simply a dose. Potion and poison are the same Latin word arriving twice, which is a dark little fact.
Proto-Indo-European
*peh₃-
Middle English
pocioun
English, today
potion
Built from
From Middle English pocioun. From Middle English pocioun, borrowed from Old French pocion, from Latin pōtiō (“a drinking”), pōtiōnis, from pōtāre (“to drink”). Displaced native Old English drenċ whence Modern English drench. a doublet of poison.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Myths & Legends, Fairy Tales & Folklore