• bane •
Pronunciation: bayn • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. Death or a cause of death, such as poison. 2. A cause of ruin or destruction, usually in the figurative sense.
Notes: Today's word is a virtual antonym of boon "a great benefit, windfall", coincidentally spelled with the same consonants, making it easy to remember. Bane has an adjective, baneful replete with an adverb, banefully, nothing else.
In Play: Bane is most often used hyperbolically these days—as is boon: "My children can be the bane of my life or the boon of my existence but seldom are they anything in between." (Know the feeling?) However, the sense of a cause of real destruction is still available in this word: "Unlike the good old days, when the press often looked the other way, the slightest scandal in Washington now is the bane of a political career."
Word History: Today's word has changed quite a bit since Old English, when it was bana "destroyer, slayer". It is related to Danish bane "death, murder" but also "path, road", like German bahn "highway" (the connection predates the German highway without speed limits, the Autobahn). These two seemingly unrelated meanings probably come from a day when a path or road was seen as a place through the forest chopped or cut clear by blows of axes, since the ancestor of bane and Bahn apparently meant "to hit, strike".
BANE
- Dr. Goodword
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BANE
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Bane appears as a suffix or combining form in words such as bugbane,cowbane, dogbane, fleabane, henbane, leopard's bane, wolfsbane, and a host of others.
Does this mean that Brisbane is deadly to moels?
Does this mean that Brisbane is deadly to moels?
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Mohel, schmohel. Mohel, Moel, and Mo'el are all variant spellings that I've seen. I went for the similarity between Moel and Mole (I've got moles in my front yard but no mohels). Remember the mohel that shaved the rednecks' heads in Porky's?. . . That's mohels. And no remarks about working for tips.
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
Maybe if you gave some of Geezer's wolfsbane to the moles they would go away --oh, that's right, wolfsbane is for vampires and warewolves and such... where's my head???I have moles and mohels in my yard They've actually made mountains out of their mohels.
mark at-war Bailey
Huny one-should-never-do-whichcraft-with-such-poisonous-plants
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.
Actually I will purchase some powered Fox urine to scare the little boogers away. Not that I wouldn't prefer to have them dead. But gone is awesome too. I actually do not want to scare off wolves but make it appear that wolves are around and hunting moles.Maybe if you gave some of Geezer's wolfsbane to the moles they would go away --oh, that's right, wolfsbane is for vampires and warewolves and such... where's my head???I have moles and mohels in my yard They've actually made mountains out of their mohels.
mark at-war Bailey
Huny
mark moles-are-not-cute-neither-are-their-mohels Bailey
Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
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