- Fatal injury or ruin: “Hath some fond lover tic'd thee to thy bane?” (George Herbert).
- A cause of harm, ruin, or death: “Obedience,/Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,/Makes slaves of men” (Percy Bysshe Shelley).
- A source of persistent annoyance or exasperation: “The spellings of foreign names are often the bane of busy copy editors” (Norm Goldstein).
- A deadly poison.
[Middle English, destroyer, from Old English bana.]






