baleful
/ˈbeɪl.fəl/
baleful adjective: portending evil; ominous.
Adjective
baleful (comparative more baleful, superlative most baleful)
- Portending evil; ominous.
- The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms,
Amidst the soundless solitudes immense
Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.1873, James Thomson (B.V.), The City of Dreadful Night - According to them all sorcerers, necromancers and evil-doers were born under the baleful influence of the seventh calendic sign[.]1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 186
- Synonyms:
- foreboding, portentous, augurous, bodeful, boding, dire, disastrous, divine, fatal, ill-boding
- The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms,
- Miserable, wretched, distressed, suffering.
- Thou balefull Messenger, out of my sight:1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- round he throws his baleful eyes, that witnessed huge affliction and dismay […]1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
- Deadly, mortal.
- With balefull weedes, and precious Iuiced flowers, / The earth that's Natures mother, is her Tombe,c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- If some were akin to the Formori of the baleful fogs in Irish mythic history and the Mallt-y-nos, those she-demons of marshy lands immortalised by the Welsh bards, creatures huge and uncouth "with grey and glaring eyes," there were others who exceeded in beauty anything human.1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals, London: Longmans, Green and Co., page 14
baleful meaning in Marathi, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
baleful in Marathi
- baleful, ruinous
- घातक ghātak
baleful in Urdu
- آزردہ دل, مضر, نقصان دہ, رنجیدہ, تکلیف دہ
baleful in Bengali
- ক্ষতিকর, অশুভ ইঙ্গিতপূর্ণ
baleful in Malayalam
- threatening, menacing, unfriendly
- വിനാശകരമായ, ഭീഷണമായ, ഭീഷണിയായ, ഭീഷണിപ്പെടുത്തുന്ന, ശത്രുത്വമുള്ള, സ്നേഹശൂന്യമായ
More languagesFewer languages
- baleful in Kannada
- ಕೆಟ್ಟ, ದ್ವೇಷದಿಂದ ಕೂಡಿದ, ಹಾನಿಕಾರಕ
Examples of baleful in a sentence
- […] he went off alone with his family, and, watched by the day's red baleful eye, pumped the pump-car homeward, […]1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter XII, in Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, page 194:
- Few people cast a more baleful shadow over postwar Britain than Peter Sutcliffe, the “Yorkshire Ripper”, who has died aged 742020 November 13, Duncan Campbell, “Peter Sutcliffe obituary”, in The Guardian:
Synonyms of baleful
17 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of baleful
| comparative | more baleful |
|---|---|
| superlative | most baleful |
| alternative form (obsolete) | balefull |
Origin of baleful
From Middle English baleful, balful, baluful, from Old English bealuful, which was equivalent to bealu + -ful. By surface analysis, bale (“evil, woe”) + -ful. See bale for further etymology.
Words formed from baleful
Questions about baleful
- What does baleful mean?
- Baleful means portending evil; ominous.
- What is baleful in Marathi?
- Baleful in Marathi is घातक (ghātak). See Baleful meaning in Marathi.
- How do you use baleful in a sentence?
- […] he went off alone with his family, and, watched by the day's red baleful eye, pumped the pump-car homeward, […]
- What part of speech is baleful?
- Baleful is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce baleful?
- Baleful is pronounced /ˈbeɪl.fəl/.
Words near baleful in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: baleful (page history and authors); घातक (Marathi) (page history and authors); baleful (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); baleful (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); baleful (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); baleful (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-baleful.wav.
Cite this entry: “baleful.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/baleful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.