Word.ws English Dictionary

banefulest

banefulest is the superlative form of baneful.

Meaning of baneful

Adjective

baneful (comparative more baneful, superlative most baneful)

  1. (archaic) Poisonous, deadly.
    • [S]ome fell ſerpent in his cave expects / The traveller's approach, batten'd vvith herbs / Of baneful juice to fury, forth he looks / Hideous, and lies coil'd all around his den.1791, Homer, “[The Iliad.] Book XXII.”, in W[illiam] Cowper, transl., The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume I, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 577...
  2. Harmful, injurious.
    • This contempt of the understanding in early life has more baneful consequences than is commonly supposed […]1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC

Questions about banefulest

What is banefulest the superlative form of?
Banefulest is the superlative form of baneful.

Words near banefulest in the dictionary

  1. baneberries
  2. baneberry
  3. baned
  4. Baneelon
  5. baneful
  6. banefulest
  7. banefullest
  8. banefully
  9. banefulness
  10. banend
  11. Banerjee

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: banefulest (page history and authors); baneful (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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