Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context business English) Any strategy designed to produce negative results for an entity carrying out a takeover. 2 (context politics English) A provision in a bill that leads to people who would have supported it opposing it instead.
WordNet
n. the target company defends itself by making its stock less attractive to an acquirer
Wikipedia
- redirect NBA salary cap#poison pill
Poison pill may refer to:
- Shareholder rights plan, a defensive tactic to prevent a corporate takeover.
- Wrecking amendment or "poison pill amendment", an addition to a legislative bill that renders it ineffective
- A poison pill, part of a contract for some free agents in the National Basketball Association (NBA) designed to discourage players from re-joining their previous teams
- Suicide pill, a pill containing poison used to commit suicide
Usage examples of "poison pill".
But if you hear anything, however minor, report it, I don't want one of you held hostage, I don't want a poison pill, I don't want a Mazianni carrier turning up in our path between here and Esperance.
No, he didn't think it was just as well to feed them a poison pill, as they did with babies in the last stages of SE.
Yesterday on London Bridge Jacky had told him about the abortive attempt on Horrabin's life, and Doyle wished he had the poison pill the dwarf had offered Jacky.
I was appalled at this ultimate betrayal and reluctantly reinstated him, swallowing a poison pill I knew in the end would help kill me.
Lafferty comes to Edinburgh to assist in the investigation of a leak, not as the suspected source, but then kills himself with a poison pill as soon as he's left alone for five minutes.
Although he would have sworn he'd never actually use it up to a moment before, he found himself popping a poison pill into his mouth and crushing it between his teeth.
The entire fleet of machine warships and robots swallowed the programming rewrite like a deadly poison pill.
There was no poison pill like the one Francis Gary Powers didn't take after his U-2 crash.
And society, through this perversion of the law, not only condones it, but promotes it, extracting a last ounce of pain, a final poison pill that festers in the Petrie dish of the future until its spawn resurrect the story line to destroy families still unborn.
If you let it be known that you are prepared to kill yourself rather than submit to coercive authority - and have the means at hand, such as a poison pill in a locket around your neck - you may find that many an authoritarian will decide harassing you would cause too many problems.
He said Nijakin would probably think it was some kind of poison pill, and didnt want to scare him any more than he already is.