Etymology

baleful

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Today it means: Portending evil; ominous. Full definition →

Middle English baleful ← Old English bealuful
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The story

  1. Old English · inherited frombealuful
  2. Middle English · inherited frombaleful
  3. English todaybaleful

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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.