bane

American  

[beyn] / beɪn /

noun

banes plural

1. a person or thing that ruins or spoils.

   Gambling was the bane of his existence.

2. a deadly poison (often used in combination, as in the names of poisonous plants).

   wolfsbane;

   henbane.

3. death; destruction; ruin.

4. Obsolete. that which causes death or destroys life.

   entrapped and drowned beneath the watery bane.

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bane ¹ British  

/ beɪn /

noun

1. a person or thing that causes misery or distress (esp in the phrase bane of one's life )

2. something that causes death or destruction

3. 1. a fatal poison

   2. ( in combination )

      ratsbane

4. archaic ruin or distress

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bane ² British  

/ beɪn, ben /

noun

1. a Scot word for bone

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• banes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of bane

First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English bana “slayer”; cognate with Old Norse bani “death, murderer,” Old Frisian bona “murder,” Old Saxon bano “murderer,” Old High German bano “slayer,” bana “death”; akin to Armenian ǰnǰel “to destroy,” Greek theínein “to strike,” Latin -fendere “to strike,” Persian zahr “poison,” Polish gonić “to pursue,” Sanskrit hánti “to strike”

Explanation

The noun bane refers to anything that is a cause of harm, ruin, or death. But we often use it for things that aren't that bad, just feel like it. You might say mosquitoes are the bane of your existence. The source of this word is Middle and Old English bana, meaning "destroyer, murderer." The now obsolete meaning of "deadly poison" is seen in the names of poisonous plants such as wolfsbane and henbane. Although "bane of my existence" is a commonly heard phrase, there's something deliciously archaic about the word bane. It conjures up villages preyed upon by dragons, or witches adding one bane or another to a steaming kettle.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bane banes

She was a stickler for analysis, whose intensive assignments were the bane of many classmates.

From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026

Sen. Mitch McConnell, Senate Republicans’ 84-year-old former party leader and long-time bane of Democrats’ existence, checked into a hospital last month and has hardly been heard from since.

From Slate ● Jul. 2, 2026

Children's Commissioner for England Dame Rachel de Souza said young people benefit from technology, but that children, parents, and carers struggle to find where the right balance, saying it is "the bane of our life".

From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2026

Now he could well become L.A.’s first homeless mayor—fittingly, in a city where homelessness is the greatest civic obsession as well as the greatest civic bane.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026

Racial hate had been the bane of my life, and here before my eyes was concrete proof that it could be abolished.

From "Black Boy" by Richard Wright

Tuesday seemed one of our more humid days, and the twin banes of heat and humidity joined to provide the triple-digit experience.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 6, 2021

Though she clearly champions her subjects, Brewer doesn’t pull any punches about why the festival fell apart after seven years, thanks to those classic banes of arts nonprofits, volunteer burnout and the failure to professionalize.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 1, 2020

But we know that paperwork was one of the banes of the housing crisis.

From Slate ● Nov. 10, 2016

One of the banes of commercial existence has been that Internet domain names can be registered by anyone, in a flash.

From Forbes ● Jan. 23, 2015

“She’s managed to do just as much as us against the banes of Asamando, even with no powers or abilities.”

From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer