Baleful

//ˈbeɪl.fəl// adj

adj ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Portending evil; ominous.

    "The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms, Amidst the soundless solitudes immense Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs."

  2. 2
    Miserable, wretched, distressed, suffering. obsolete

    "Thou balefull Messenger, out of my sight:"

  3. 3
    Deadly, mortal. obsolete

    "With balefull weedes, and precious Iuiced flowers, / The earth that's Natures mother, is her Tombe,"

Adjective
  1. 1
    threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments wordnet
  2. 2
    deadly or sinister wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
maleficentthreateningfatalabandonedapocalypticarrant

Example

More examples

"Now fail the ships wherein Achates ride / and Abas; old Aletes' bark gives way, / and brave Ilioneus'. Each loosened side / through many a gaping seam lets in the baleful tide."

Etymology

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.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.