as in harmful
causing or capable of causing harm
the incredibly baneful effect that drug addiction has on so many communities
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Recent Examples of baneful
The baneful effects of war on public speech and freedoms in Russia have been well recorded.
—
Fred Weir, The Christian Science Monitor, 19 Dec. 2022
The impact these soldiers had on the South was baneful.
—New York Times, 14 Feb. 2022
We are mired in a baneful pandemic unlike anything endured for a century, parsing our lives into 14-day increments of health and survival — or not.
—Peter M. Leschak, Star Tribune, 31 July 2020
To home in on what gives these peculiar primates their baneful bite, Fry and his colleagues collected the underarm secretions from a handful of wild slow lorises housed at a research station in Indonesia and isolated the proteins within.
—Katherine J. Wu, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 Feb. 2020
This resulted in all the baneful consequences of the French Revolution, which Edmund Burke so brilliantly exposed in his Reflections on the Revolution in France.
—Jaithirth Rao, Quartz India, 4 Nov. 2019
Chaos convincingly ebbs and flows in this rattling film, a baneful tide lapping at some of history’s most troubled shores.
—Richard Lawson, HWD, 20 July 2017
Chaos convincingly ebbs and flows in this rattling film, a baneful tide lapping at some of history’s most troubled shores.
—Richard Lawson, vanityfair.com, 20 July 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for baneful
Adjective
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Some harmful varieties closely resemble edible mushrooms, even to experienced foragers.—
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On each phone, the lock screen image was a photo of a child who died young due to the harmful effects of social media.—
Adjective
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Public systems can be somewhat risk adverse.—
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Nekrasov said adverse weather conditions also left parts of several other regions without power, including Chernihiv, Kyiv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Zakarpattia.—
Adjective
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Rat poison, in Saban-speak, is what is detrimental to teams that start believing their hype and losing focus on the controllables like working as hard as possible every day.—
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So did the first-round bye really prove to be that detrimental?—
Adjective
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Pipes and sewers can be very dangerous for pets and wildlife and Roto-Rooter, with specialized equipment and personnel, has become a go-to call to save cats, dogs, turtles and more.—
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Ole Miss has enough dangerous weapons in quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, running back Kewan Lacy and wide receivers Harrison Wallace III, De’Zhaun Stribling and Deuce Alexander to make a tired defense pay.—
Adjective
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Davis’ injury is the latest — and potentially most damaging — blow in a Mavericks season defined by attrition.—
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After a damaging winter storm of rain, wind, and flooding, staff at Mountain High Resorts in Wrightwood have been working around the clock to prepare for reopening day on Saturday.—
Adjective
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Iran is facing its worst drought in decades, raising fears of evacuations in Tehran while threatening the regime’s stability and nuclear ambitions, according to a leading environmental expert.—
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Keeping bad things out of my body.—
Cite this Entry
“Baneful.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/baneful. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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