poach

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“
"He's not going to poach, after all!" cried Erebus in a tone of acute disappointment.

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Definitions (27)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (12)

  1. transitive verb To cook in a boiling or simmering liquid: Poach the fish in wine.
  2. intransitive verb To trespass on another's property in order to take fish or game.
  3. intransitive verb To take fish or game in a forbidden area.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (9)

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Examples (50)

  • Sure Salesforce. com can poach some accounts here and there, but at some point it will need to leverage bigger relationships-the kind Dell has. —  Software Sector and Stocks Analysis from Seeking Alpha
  • Great recruiters are just like great salespeople, seven-foot centers, and great CEOs: If you want a great one, expect to have to poach them away from numerous other great opportunities. —  ERE.net
  • There is no secret who the ad was intended for, despite daily defections from Yahoo there is still some top-notch talent inside the company that the competition would love to poach. —  ERE.net
  • This option is to poach away most, if not all, of the talent that provides the competition with its capacity to exist, something Microsoft is obviously doing in a very public way. —  ERE.net
  • Remove his licence to poach and Lampard is half the player - and in danger of being average again. —  TEAMtalk Football News
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Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Back-formation from Middle English poched, poached, from poche, dish of poached eggs, from Old French, from past participle of pochier, to poach eggs, from poche, pocket, bag (from their appearance), of Germanic origin.
  2. Obsolete French pocher, to poke, thrust, intrude, from Old French pochier, to poke, gouge, of Germanic origin.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. Early modern English also poatch. potch, poche, poch; according to Cotgrave, who gives only the past participle poché, from Old French pocher, poucher, thrust, poke (given by Cotgrave ‘thrust or dig out with the fingers’), P. pocher, hit (the eye, so as to give one a black eye), also Old French pocher, blur (with ink), from Low German poken, poke, thrust, = Middle Dutch pochen, thrust: see poke, of which poach is thus ult. an assibilated form. Some refer this Old French pocher, poucher, to pouce, poulce, the thumb, from Latin pollex (pollic-), the thumb: see pollex.
  2. Formerly also poch (and pocke?); apparently from Old French pocher, found in the phrase “pochier le labeur d'autruy, to poch info, or incroach upon, another man's imployment, practice in trade” (Cotgrave), where the exact sense is undetermined; it might be translated ‘to pocket another man's labor’ (pocher, pocket, from poche, a pocket, pouch: see pouch, poke); or pocher may be identical with pocher, thrust: see poach. Cf. Old French pocher, imitate, counterfeit.
  3. Early modern English also poatch, patch, pocke, poch; from French pocker, poach (eggs), first apparently in the past participle, œuf poché, a poached egg. perhaps orig. an egg ‘scooped out’ (or simply ‘broken’), the verb being then a particular use of OF.pocher, thrust, poke, dig out with the fingers: see poach. Cf. poach, perhaps of the same ult. origin.
 

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/poʊtʃ/
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