Bane

Quick meaning: Bane is a noun meaning (countable) A cause of misery or ruin.

Meaning

(countable) A cause of misery or ruin.

More Meanings

1. (countable, archaic) Chiefly in the names of poisonous plants or substances: a poison.
2. (uncountable, chiefly poetic) Misery, woe; also, doom, ruin; or physical injury, harm.
3. (uncountable, UK, dialectal, veterinary medicine) A disease of sheep in which breakdown of tissue occurs; rot.
4. A person or thing that causes death or destruction; a killer, a murderer, a slayer.
5. Death; destruction; (countable) an instance of this.
6. To physically injure (someone or something); to harm, to hurt.
7. To cause (someone) misery or ruin; to socially or spiritually injure (someone).

Example Sentences

the bane of one’s existence

This is the great bane and ſcandal of the Church, that ſuch Livings as more immediately belong to it ſhould be the vvorſt ſupplyed, […]

In dairie no cat, / Laie bane for a rat. / […] / Take heede how thou laieſt, the bane for the rats, / for poiſoning ſeruant, thy ſelfe and thy brats.

At Barking, previously the bane of L.T.S. operating staff, the new works have now simplified the working of traffic from four converging routes in the area.

Word Forms

• banes
• baning
• baned
• banest
• banedst
• baneth

Synonyms for bane

Depending on context, synonyms include blight, affliction, curse, undoing, downfall, scourge.

Antonyms for bane

Common opposites include boon.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include scourge, curse, nemesis, ruination, ruin, doom.

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