different between baleful vs severe

English

Alternative forms

• balefull (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle English baleful, balful, baluful, from Old English bealuful, which being equivalent to bealu +? -ful. Surface analysis as bale (“evil, woe”) +? -ful. See bale for further etymology.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?be?l.f?l/

Adjective

baleful (comparative more baleful, superlative most baleful)

1. Portending evil; ominous.
   • 1873, James Thomson (B.V.), The City of Dreadful Night

     The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms,

     Amidst the soundless solitudes immense

     Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943, Chapter XII, p. 194, [1]

     […] he went off alone with his family, and, watched by the day's red baleful eye, pumped the pump-car homeward, […]

   • 1949, Naomi Replansky, “Complaint of the Ignorant Wizard” in Ring Song (published 1952):

     I learned the speech of birds; now every tree
     Screams out to me a baleful prophecy.
2. Miserable, wretched, distressed, suffering.
   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost (Book I), line 56

     round he throws his baleful eyes, that witnessed huge affliction and dismay ...

Derived terms

• balefully
• unbaleful

Translations

Middle English

Alternative forms

• balful, baluful, balefulle, balefule, balleful, balefull, balful, balfulle

Etymology

From Old English bealuful; equivalent to bale +? -ful.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ba?lful/, /?balful/

Adjective

baleful

1. evil, horrible, malicious
2. (rare) dangerous, harmful, injurious
3. (rare) worthless, petty, lowly

Derived terms

• balfulli

Descendants

• English: baleful

References

• “b?leful, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-05-19.

English

Etymology

From Middle French, from Latin severus (“severe, serious, grave in demeanor”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /s??v??/ (US) IPA^(key): /s??v?r/
• Rhymes: -??(?)

Adjective

severe (comparative severer or more severe, superlative severest or most severe)

1. Very bad or intense.
2. Strict or harsh.

   a severe taskmaster

3. Sober, plain in appearance, austere.

   a severe old maiden aunt

Synonyms

Antonyms

• (very bad or intense): mild
• (very bad or intense): minor
• (strict or harsh): lenient

Derived terms

• severely (adverb)
• severity (noun)
• severeness (noun)

Translations

Further reading

• severe in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• severe in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• severe at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Reeves, everse, reeves, servee

Esperanto

Adverb

severe

1. severely

Related terms

• severa

Italian

Adjective

severe

1. feminine plural of severo

Latin

Verb

s?v?re

1. third-person plural perfect active indicative of ser?

Adjective

sev?re

1. vocative masculine singular of sev?rus

References

• severe in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• severe in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• severe in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

Serbo-Croatian

Noun

severe (Cyrillic spelling ??????)

1. vocative singular of sever