baleful
/ˈbeɪl.fəl/
"baleful" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“baleful” is uncommon English (frequency #79,286 among 4,121 “B” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #79,286
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Portending evil; ominous.
Corpus desk
Index EN-baleful · baleful · English
baleful · rank #79,286 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #79,286
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH bailiwick
Nearest frequency peer: bailiwick (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “baleful”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- bailee
bailee
20,717 corpus weight
- bailiwick
bailiwick
20,716 corpus weight
- baleful
baleful
20,715 corpus weight
- ballas
ballas
20,714 corpus weight
- barque
barque
20,713 corpus weight
- Beaune
Beaune
20,710 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “baleful” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | baleful |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈbeɪl.fəl/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #79,286 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “baleful” in English
Rare enough to double-check
baleful is uncommon English at frequency #79,286 among 4,121 “B” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈbeɪl.fəl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
baleful has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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. The correct English form is baleful, spelled B-A-L-E-F-U-L.
Definition
- 1Portending evil; ominous.
- 2Miserable, wretched, distressed, suffering.
- 3Deadly, mortal.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how baleful appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms, Amidst the soundless solitudes immense Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.
According to them all sorcerers, necromancers and evil-doers were born under the baleful influence of the seventh calendic sign[.]
Etymology
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.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "baleful", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).