Other forms: banes
A bane is the cause of somebody's lasting misery. The bane of my life, a bane to farmers, bane of his existence.
It survives almost entirely in the phrase the bane of, and it once meant poison or death outright — which is why it is still buried in plant names like henbane and wolfsbane, both of which are genuinely poisonous.
1nounbaneThe cause of somebody's lasting misery.
“Traffic jams are the bane of my life; I spend hours in them every week.”
bane is a cause of misery.
Old English bana meant a killer or destroyer, from a Germanic root meaning to strike down.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷʰen-
Middle English
bane
English, today
bane
From Middle English bane. The noun is derived from Middle English bane (“person or thing that destroys life, murderer, slayer; person who destroys the soul; destruction of life, death, doom; poison”), from Old English bana (“person or thing that causes death, murderer”), from Proto-West Germanic banō, from Proto-Germanic banô (“killer, murderer, slayer; death, bane”), probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European gʷʰen- (“to slay, kill; to strike”). The verb is derived from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA