| 词组 | baleful, baneful |
| 释义 | baleful, baneful These two words are somewhat similar in meaning as well as appearance and are sometimes used in quite similar contexts, but in the main they differ in emphasis. Baleful, the older and more frequently used word, typically describes what threatens or portends evil: • ... despite the baleful economic outlook —DeWitt C. Morrill, Wall Street Jour., 23 Mar. 1954 • "Pest!" he said sharply and gave Waldo a baleful look —Jean Stafford, Children Are Bored on Sunday, 1953 • Men! Her gaze rested upon her husband with baleful intensity —Katherine Anne Porter, Accent, Summer 1946 • Complete with "uranium reactor," powerful atom smashers, a "hot lab" and other baleful equipment — Time, 18 Nov. 1946 But baleful is also used of what has an evil or pernicious influence or effect: • ... the baleful arts of sorcerers —Sir James G. Fra-zer, The Golden Bough, 1935 • ... she had been launched under some baleful star; and so, was a luckless ship —Herman Melville, Omoo, 1847 • ... the baleful power of fanaticisms and superstitions —Edmund Wilson, New Yorker, 14 May 1955 Baneful applies typically to what causes evil or destruction: • He felt that some baneful secret in his life might be exposed —John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle, 1957 • ... the ugly, baneful and largely avoidable excretions of their employers' plants —Donald Gould, Smithsonian, May 1972 • ... were responsible for baneful policies still in force —Elmer Davis, But We Were Born Free, 1954 • ... her love for him is a possessive and baneful love —J. D. Scott, Saturday Rev., 1 May 1955 Both words are used to modify terms like influence, effect, result; in such use there is little to choose between them: • From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all his labours, and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence —James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791 • The baneful influence of this narrow construction on all the operations of the government —John Marshall, McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819 |
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