Date
Meaning & History
Used by Edgar Allen Poe for the title character of his Gothic short story Morella (1835), in which case he may have invented it by adding a diminutive suffix to Latin mors "death", or taken it from the name of the ancient Spanish city, which was named by the Moors after the region Mauritania, perhaps ultimately derived from Greek mauros "black" (see Maurus). It is also an alternative name for the poisonous weed "black nightshade", probably also from Greek mauros "black". This name was also used as a rare medieval Scottish variant of Muriella.