Have you ever seen one of these signs, warning you that something is deadly poisonous and contains TOXIC WASTE?

The story of the word ‘toxic’ might make you shudder. The grinning skull might also give you a clue!

‘Toxic’ comes from a word used every day by the ancient Greeks — toxon. Back then, a toxon was an arrow, shot from a bow and used as a lethal weapon against the enemy. And what made them even deadlier was the cunning trick of dipping them in bubbling poison. This powerful killer became so notorious that toxon began to take on the meaning of the poison itself rather than the arrow, which is how ‘toxic’ passed into English and why it means deadly poisonous today. ‘Intoxicated’, meanwhile, which is usually applied these days to someone who has drunk too much alcohol, originally described someone who had been speared by those treacherous arrows.

So, next time you see a picture of Robin Hood shooting his famous arrow, or even the archers competing in the Olympics, you can tell everyone about their deadly ancestors!