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Webster 1913 Edition


Baleful

Bale′ful

(bāl′fụl)
,
Adj.
[AS.
bealoful
. See
Bale
misery.]
1.
Full of deadly or pernicious influence; destructive.
Baleful enemies.”
Shak.
Four infernal rivers that disgorge
Into the burning lake their
baleful
streams.
Milton.
2.
Full of grief or sorrow; woeful; sad.
[Archaic]

Webster 1828 Edition


Baleful

BA'LEFUL

, a.[See Bale.] Woeful; sad; sorrowful; full of grief; producing misery; as, a baleful smart; baleful eyes.
2.
Mischievous; destructive; pernicious; calamitous; deadly; as, baleful enemies; baleful war.

Definition 2024


baleful

baleful

English

Alternative forms

Adjective

baleful (comparative more baleful, superlative most baleful)

  1. Portending evil; ominous.
    • 1674, John Milton: Paradise Lost (Book I)
      round he throws his baleful eyes, that witnessed huge affliction and dismay.
    • 1873, James Thomson (B.V.), The City of Dreadful Night
      The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms,
      Amidst the soundless solitudes immense
      Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.
    • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943, Chapter XII, p. 194,
      [] he went off alone with his family, and, watched by the day's red baleful eye, pumped the pump-car homeward, []
  2. Miserable, wretched, distressed, suffering.

Translations