baleful

adj

Etymology: From Middle English baleful, balful, baluful, from Old English bealuful, which was equivalent to bealu + -ful. By surface analysis, bale (“evil, woe”) + -ful. See bale for further etymology.

1. Portending evil; ominous.

   “The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms, Amidst the soundless solitudes immense Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.”

   “According to them all sorcerers, necromancers and evil-doers were born under the baleful influence of the seventh calendic sign[.]”

2. Miserable, wretched, distressed, suffering.

   “Thou balefull Messenger, out of my sight:”

   “round he throws his baleful eyes, that witnessed huge affliction and dismay […]”

3. Deadly, mortal.

   “With balefull weedes, and precious Iuiced flowers, / The earth that's Natures mother, is her Tombe,”

   “If some were akin to the Formori of the baleful fogs in Irish mythic history and the Mallt-y-nos, those she-demons of marshy lands immortalised by the Welsh bards, creatures huge and uncouth "with grey and glaring eyes," there were others who exceeded in beauty anything human.”