Definition of "bane" []

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

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Consider This: Unless people are aware of its Hawaiian origins, this name will evoke the word bane and all its negative associations."
• "He'd never heard anyone use the word "bane" correctly in a sentence before."
• "Anyway, it got me thinking about my sister who I often describe as the bane of my existence."