Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use baleful in a sentence

11 example sentences · adjective

Baleful means portending evil; ominous. Example: “In their excellent essay in The Atlantic endorsing disqualification, Luttig and Tribe remind us that the first president, in his 1796 Farewell Address, had foreseen many of the elements of this baleful disaster.”

Examples of baleful by meaning

adjectivePortending evil; ominous.

  • 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
  • In their excellent essay in The Atlantic endorsing disqualification, Luttig and Tribe remind us that the first president, in his 1796 Farewell Address, had foreseen many of the elements of this baleful disaster.2023 September 2, Simon Schama, “The real Rino”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2

More sentences with baleful

  • And postliberalism tends to offers two answers, both connected to the baleful influence of libertarianism.2023 June 28, Ross Douthat, “How Do You Replace an Elite?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry postliberalism
  • Everything is too fat!" Joanna shot her mother a baleful glance that brimmed with threat.1994, Judith Clarke, “Tights”, in Friend of My Heart, St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press, →ISBN, pages 35–36. From the entry ladder
  • I fled as a man flies from dream to baleful dream of some cacodemoniacal night.1960, Clark Ashton Smith, The Abominations of Yondo. From the entry cacodaemoniacal
  • Should she kill this magnetic spider, and so end its baleful influence?1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia…. From the entry spinner
  • It ate with a kind of baleful indifference, its wet, snottery trunk curling out mechanically to take the food through the bars.2003, James Robertson, Joseph Knight, →ISBN, page 103. From the entry snottery
  • The word I was looking for, I suppose, was "sphingine" – I thought of the baleful prehistoric smile of the Mycenaean women.1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 109. From the entry sphingine
  • It appeared baleful, fiery and red; it wore coquelicot like a crown of thorns, and cast a humid heat entirely unlike the fierce intensity of the desert sun.1980, Stephen Donaldson, The Wounded Land: The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Book One, Hachette UK, →ISBN. From the entry coquelicot
  • When Red and the professor got out to slide the heavy disk back into place they discovered a holeful of angry, baleful eyes looking up at them.1966, E. L. Doctorow, Big as Life, page 21. From the entry holeful
  • Deadly nightshade, henbane, hellebore and mandrakes were of evil reputation; the latter being called the "Devil's Candles," as they were supposed to shine out with baleful gleams upon dark nights.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 157. From the entry devil's candle

Meaning of baleful

  1. adjective Portending evil; ominous.
  2. adjective Miserable, wretched, distressed, suffering.
  3. adjective Deadly, mortal.

Full definition of baleful

Questions about baleful in a sentence

How do you use baleful in a sentence?
Baleful is used as an adjective. For example: “In their excellent essay in The Atlantic endorsing disqualification, Luttig and Tribe remind us that the first president, in his 1796 Farewell Address, had foreseen many of the elements of this baleful disaster.”
What is a short sentence with baleful?
“Should she kill this magnetic spider, and so end its baleful influence?”
What does baleful mean?
Baleful means portending evil; ominous.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: baleful (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use baleful in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/baleful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.