15 December 2014

baleful

[beyl-fuh l]

adjective
1. full of menacing or malign influences; pernicious.
2. Obsolete. wretched; miserable.

Origin

Middle English, Old English

1000, before 1000; Middle English; Old English bealofull. See bale2, -ful

Related forms
balefully, adverb
balefulness, noun

Can be confused
baleful, baneful.

Synonyms
1. harmful, malign, injurious, detrimental; evil, wicked; deadly.

Dictionary.com

Examples from the web for baleful
– Authenticity now dominates our way of viewing ourselves and our relationships, with baleful consequences.
– The polls corroborate the baleful economic portents.
– But this time the scare is about more than bad mortgage loans and their baleful effect on the credit markets.

Anagram

able flu
lab fuel

Today’s quote

Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo.

– Mary Pickford

On this day

15 December 1970 – Russia’s Venera 7 spacecraft lands on Venus, the first man-made object to land on the planet. It was launched on 15 August 1970.