Where I learn words

Last night my son was playing a game with a group of boys, ages ten through fourteen would be my guess. This game had all of them- again, a guess, about twelve boys- holding each others wrists enclosing an area in the center of which stood a plastic trash can. Once the game started, the boys started running, holding on to the other boys’ wrists with all of their might, veering towards and then away from the trash can. The result was an amoeba gone wild, gyrating loudly and crazily around the can until grasps came apart or until a boy crashed into the can.
After seeing this, quite loud, crazy spectacle, I asked my son on the way home, “So, is that whipsaw game what you did all night?”
“Whipsaw? Where did you get that?” he asked. He has just become a teenager.
“Well, that is what it looked like. A whipsaw,” I answered. I didn’t know what a “whipsaw” was but I knew that described what I saw- boys whipping around the room, fast as a saw.
“It’s not called that,” he said. “The game is called ‘Poison.’”
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
“If you touch the barrel, you are poisoned,” he answered.

whipsaw (transitive verb)
1
: to saw with a whipsaw
2
: to beset or victimize in two opposite ways at once, by a two-phase operation, or by the collusive action of two opponents (wage earners were whipsawed by inflation and high taxes)

poison (transitive verb)
1
a : to injure or kill with poison b : to treat, taint, or impregnate with or as if with poison
2
: to exert a baneful influence on : corrupt (poisoned their minds)
3
: to inhibit the activity, course, or occurrence of (on the night when he poisoned my rest — Charles Dickens)

definitions from Merriam-Webster online dictionary