How to Use baleful in a Sentence

baleful

adjective
  • Plus, there would be that litany of baleful side-effect disclaimers.
    — Steve Salerno, WSJ, 20 Apr. 2018
  • Three Virgin Marys kept their baleful eyes on the back of Allen’s head.
    — Han Ong, The New Yorker, 9 Jan. 2023
  • No wonder people turn such baleful eyes on the bloodless lumps of beans and grain brought into their midst.
    — Wired, 27 Nov. 2019
  • Only a small part of Kate’s baleful career is shown in the film and the Chinese isn’t there at all.
    — Jack Moffitt, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 Mar. 2023
  • With the present spinning out of control, writers began to cast a baleful eye toward the future.
    — Kyle Paoletta, Harper’s Magazine , 13 Mar. 2023
  • Despite this baleful record, deficit hawks retain an honored place among financial pundits.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 3 Sep. 2021
  • As soon as the scene began, Nathan came from another room, whimpered at me and shot baleful glances at the television.
    — Washington Post, 10 Aug. 2021
  • But in his eyes, godless communism and the Soviet Union were just as baleful.
    — Reuel Marc Gerecht, Foreign Affairs, 7 Sep. 2023
  • Orange County officials are the most recent to come under his baleful gaze.
    — Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board, The Orlando Sentinel, 10 Aug. 2025
  • Holmes’s comments remind us that there’s a long and baleful backstory behind today’s efforts to bring back child labor.
    — Naomi Oreskes, Scientific American, 1 June 2023
  • Lockdown policies had baleful effects on local economies, families and children, and the virus spread anyway.
    — Scott W. Atlas, WSJ, 21 Dec. 2020
  • When Spector was a child, his father died by suicide, a violent and baleful act that hung over Spector’s life.
    — Daniel D'addario, Variety, 3 Nov. 2022
  • This lushly red oval is obvious even through small telescopes, looking like a baleful eye staring out from the enormous gas giant planet.
    — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 12 July 2024
  • And some of it may simply reflect fatigue, after 17 months of baleful headlines and stifling lockdowns.
    — New York Times, 28 Aug. 2021
  • And some of it may simply reflect fatigue, after 17 months of baleful headlines and stifling lockdowns.
    — The New York Times, Arkansas Online, 29 Aug. 2021
  • Quinones cuts the baleful trafficking news with stories about innovative rehab programs, drug courts and addicts who get clean.
    — Harriet Ryan, Los Angeles Times, 29 Oct. 2021
  • Together, the three bodies form a kind of cosmic triangle, with the baleful light of the red giant star Betelgeuse at its heart.
    — Anthony Wood, Space.com, 9 Apr. 2026
  • This year’s climate summit in Glasgow has been an embarrassing flop for the green brigades, with one baleful exception.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 7 Nov. 2021
  • There's no room for a baleful Bozo when our most sane clown may be the dancing one killing children in Derry and our most insane clowns have formed a posse.
    — Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 22 Aug. 2019
  • Which helps explain the title, which can be read in joyous terms or baleful, of that colorful picture glowingly commanding the room.
    — Charles Desmarais, San Francisco Chronicle, 5 June 2018
  • Maila’s baleful stare, not at all reminiscent of sirens immemorial, also was meant to unnerve viewers.
    — oregonlive, 15 Apr. 2021
  • Yet subject the cold and briny deep to the Jan Brett treatment and even the slimy skins and baleful eyes of octopi begin to take on an approachable, homey feel.
    — Meghan Cox Gurdon, WSJ, 18 Aug. 2017
  • To be constantly watchful for the baleful effects of toxic masculinity?
    — Rich Lowry, National Review, 24 Oct. 2019
  • Soon thereafter, rumors of a baleful Bozo moved south to Mulhouse, France, so five local teens formed an anti-clown task force.
    — Michael Howard, Esquire, 27 Oct. 2014
  • The lockdown is not overtly mentioned in the album’s 11 songs, but its influence is felt, along with that of climate change and other baleful issues.
    — Allan Kozinn, WSJ, 15 Dec. 2020
  • Women are thought of as contaminants in the heya and arm candy outside it; the sponsors exert a baleful commercial pressure on the fighters.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 6 Mar. 2025
  • Unlike Ophelia, the patron saint of moribund allure, the women who cloak themselves in these baleful blooms will not be tragic characters.
    — Steff Yotka, Vogue, 12 Mar. 2019
  • The baleful influence thus ever shed by Slavery on our national history and our public men has not yet spent its malignant forces.
    — Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic, 16 Aug. 2017
  • Civil society will need to continue stepping up in the years to come, because, if countries keep digging up their oil and gas, every record broken will likely be a baleful one.
    — Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, 31 July 2022
  • If Johnson does return as party leader sometime after a Tory election defeat, his baleful presence could be with us until the end of the decade.
    — Tom McTague, The Atlantic, 24 Oct. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'baleful.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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