Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Error; delusion
  • noun A sleeping-potion; a soporific.
  • noun The deadly nightshade, Atropa Belladonna, which possesses stupefying or poisonous properties.
  • noun In heraldry, a sable or black color.
  • To mutter deliriously.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) The deadly nightshade (Atropa Belladonna), having stupefying qualities.
  • noun (Her.) The tincture sable or black when blazoned according to the fantastic system in which plants are substituted for the tinctures.
  • noun A sleeping potion; an opiate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete a sleeping-potion, especially one made from belladonna
  • noun belladonna itself, deadly nightshade; or some other soporific plant
  • noun error, delusion
  • noun heraldry a sable or black color.
  • verb To mutter deliriously

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English dwale ("dazed, stupor; deception, trickery; delusion; error, wrong-doing, evil"), from Old English dwala, dwola ("error, heresy; doubt; madman, deceiver, heretic") and possibly of Scandinavian origin, compare Danish dvale ‘sleep, stupor’.

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Examples

  • As an example of the mixture of real and fake, dwale is based on a real plant, deadly nightshade, but I took liberties with its effects.

    Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Sarah Micklem, Part Two 2006

  • Also called dwale - deriving this common name from the French word for sorrow, deuil, or the Scandinavian word, dool, for sleep or delay - deadly nightshade is a very effective poison.

    CreationWiki - Recent changes [en] 2010

  • There are various recipes for dwale from the Middle Ages, and I think they generally feature hemlock, henbane, opium and various other ingredients.

    Early medieval surgical knowledge Carla 2010

  • I took it off and found it was made of dwale, like the wreaths the adepts had worn for the rites.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • I took it off and found it was made of dwale, like the wreaths the adepts had worn for the rites.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • The adepts wore white wrappers and wreaths of dwale, which in Lambanein meant secrecy.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • The adepts wore white wrappers and wreaths of dwale, which in Lambanein meant secrecy.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • I took it off and found it was made of dwale, like the wreaths the adepts had worn for the rites.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • The adepts wore white wrappers and wreaths of dwale, which in Lambanein meant secrecy.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • Two of the most beautiful of these are the white convolvulus, San Graal of the hedges, and the dwale – that lurid amphora where the death's-head moth, with its weird form and wings of enchanted purples, drinks under the white light of the moon and, if it is touched, cries out like a witch in a weak, strident voice.

    The Spring of Joy: A Little Book of Healing 1917

Comments

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  • Belladonna.

    December 3, 2007

  • Long battered by life's upland gale

    Some shelter in shrubs of the swale.

    They soothe all alarm

    And dwindle to dwalm

    With a dose of the peace-giving dwale.

    March 2, 2015

  • (noun) - Error, delusion; deceit; heretic, deceiver c.900-1300; related to Old English dwela, dweola, and dwala, error, heresy, madness. Dwal-kenned, heretical.

    --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897

    January 16, 2018