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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A poisonous Eurasian perennial herb (Atropa belladonna) having usually solitary, nodding, purplish-brown, bell-shaped flowers and glossy black berries. Also called deadly nightshade.
  2. n. An alkaloidal extract or tincture derived from this plant and used in medicine.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A plant, Atropa Belladonna, or deadly nightshade, natural order Solanaceæ, a native of central and southern Europe. All parts of the plant are poisonous, and depend for their pharmacodynamic properties on the alkaloid atropin. The plant and its alkaloid are largely used in medicine to relieve pain, to check spasm and excessive perspiration, and especially in surgery to dilate the pupil and paralyze the accommodation of the eye.

Wiktionary

  1. n. a plant, Atropa belladonna, having purple bell-shaped flowers and poisonous black glossy berries; deadly nightshade
  2. n. an alkaloid extracted from this plant, sometimes used medicinally, containing atropine

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. An herbaceous European plant (Atropa belladonna) with reddish bell-shaped flowers and shining black berries. The whole plant and its fruit are very poisonous, and the root and leaves are used as powerful medicinal agents. Its properties are largely due to the alkaloid atropine which it contains. Called also deadly nightshade.
  2. n. A species of Amaryllis (Amaryllis belladonna); the belladonna lily.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. an alkaloidal extract or tincture of the poisonous belladonna plant that is used medicinally
  2. n. perennial Eurasian herb with reddish bell-shaped flowers and shining black berries; extensively grown in United States; roots and leaves yield atropine

Etymologies

  1. From Italian bella donna, literally 'beautiful lady', altered by folk etymology from Medieval Latin bladona 'nightshade', from Gaulish. The folk etymology was motivated by the cosmetic use of nightshade for dilating the eyes. (Wiktionary)
  2. Italian : bella, feminine of bello, beautiful (from Latin bellus; see deu-2 in Indo-European roots) + donna, lady; see Donna. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

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‘belladonna’ has been looked up 1629 times, loved by 1 person, added to 41 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 13.