Baneful

adj

adj ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Poisonous, deadly. archaic

    "[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."

  2. 2
    Harmful, injurious.

    "This contempt of the understanding in early life has more baneful consequences than is commonly supposed […]"

Adjective
  1. 1
    deadly or sinister wordnet
  2. 2
    exceedingly harmful wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
balefulfatalmortalpestilentabandonedapocalyptic

Example

More examples

"The world was tainted by the baneful influence of the demon king."

Etymology

From bane + -ful.

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