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baleful

UK/ˈbeɪl.fəl/US/ˈbeɪl.fəl/
adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,842 of 15,258neutral

Baleful means threatening harm. A baleful look, a baleful influence, baleful and silent.

It is used most of looks and of influences, and it means menacing rather than merely unpleasant. It is a different word from baneful, which means poisonous, and the bale in it is an Old English word for evil.

Definitions of baleful

  1. 1adjectivebalefulThreatening harm.C2

    “The dog gave the postman a baleful stare and began to growl.”

baleful is a quality.

Where it comes from

Old English bealuful is bealu, evil or harm, plus -ful.

  1. Old English

    bealuful

  2. Middle English

    baleful

  3. English, today

    baleful

From Middle English baleful, balful, baluful, from Old English bealuful, which was equivalent to bealu + ful. by surface analysis, en + bale + ful. See bale for further etymology.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

baleful in the wild

  • However, when given the chance, Sullivan was a powerful, often baleful presence on screen, providing more pleasure than many more touted stars.

    Barry Sullivan (American actor)

  • The gwyllgi is a mythical dog from Wales that appears as a frightful apparition of a mastiff or black wolf with baleful breath and blazing red eyes.

    Gwyllgi

  • Sock has a Basset Hound named "Cleo", whose thoughts (voiced by Mary Jane Croft), baleful observations of Sock's dilemmas, are recorded on the soundtrack for the viewers' amusement.

    The People's Choice (TV series)

  • The baleful nature of his reign led to the ousting of the already unpopular bloodline of Muhammad Sharefa.

    Alhaji Kabe

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.