Poison Pill Slang

Noun · Slang & Abbreviations

Definitions

  1. Informal language around a hidden or embedded choice that makes future progress harder, riskier, or more constrained. In engineering slang, poison pills are the seemingly small decisions that later sabotage flexibility.

    In plain English: Casual jargon for a hidden choice or condition that makes future work worse.

    Example: "The proprietary config format looked convenient at first, but the platform team now talked about it in poison pill slang because every new integration paid the price."

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