different between mortal vs baleful

English

Etymology

From Middle English mortal, mortel, from Old French mortal, and their source Latin mort?lis, from mors (“death”). Partly displaced native deadly, from Old English d?adl??.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?m??t?l/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?m???t?l/
• Rhymes: -??(r)t?l

Adjective

mortal (comparative more mortal, superlative most mortal)

1. Susceptible to death by aging, sickness, injury, or wound; not immortal. [from 14th c.]
2. Causing death; deadly, fatal, killing, lethal (now only of wounds, injuries etc.). [from 14th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.11:

     Blyndfold he was; and in his cruell fist
     A mortall bow and arrowes keene did hold […]

3. Punishable by death.
4. Fatally vulnerable.
5. Of or relating to the time of death.
6. Affecting as if with power to kill; deathly.
7. Human; belonging or pertaining to people who are mortal.
   • 2012, Olivia Gates, Immortal, Insatiable, Indomitable, Harlequin (?ISBN)

     “It's just...I hesitated to call the police. I wasn't sure you'd appreciate their presence.” He sure wouldn't. Mortal scum he could dispatch. Mortal law enforcement he avoided at all costs […]

8. Very painful or tedious; wearisome.
   • a. 1832, Walter Scott, To Halbert
9. (Britain, slang) Very drunk; wasted; smashed.
   • 1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage 2015, p. 13:

     Thats^[sic] nothing, says Tequila Sheila, who told how the summer she was housemaid in The Saint Columba she took this guy back to the staff flats while mortal on slammers and crashed out on him before anything could happen.

10. (religion) Of a sin: involving the penalty of spiritual death, rather than merely venial.

Synonyms

• (causing death): fatal, lethal, baneful

Antonyms

• (susceptible to death): immortal, everlasting
• (of or relating to death): natal, vital
• (causing death): vital

Derived terms

• mortality
• mortally
• mortal sin

Translations

Noun

mortal (plural mortals)

1. A human; someone susceptible to death.

   Antonym: immortal

   • 1596, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

     Lord what fools these mortals be!

Derived terms

• lesser mortal
• mere mortal

Related terms

• moribund

Translations

Adverb

mortal (not comparable)

1. (colloquial) Mortally; enough to cause death.

Asturian

Pronunciation

Adjective

mortal (epicene, plural mortales)

1. mortal (susceptible to death)
2. mortal (causing death; deadly; fatal; killing)
3. deadly (lethal)

   Synonym: mortíferu

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin mort?lis.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Valencian) IPA^(key): /mo??tal/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /mur?tal/

Adjective

mortal (masculine and feminine plural mortals)

1. mortal

   Antonym: immortal

2. deadly, lethal

Related terms

• mortalitat

Noun

mortal m or f (plural mortals)

1. mortal

Further reading

• “mortal” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “mortal” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “mortal” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “mortal” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Interlingua

Adjective

mortal (not comparable)

1. mortal (liable to die)

   Illo es un mortal wombat, illo decomponera etiam.

2. mortal (causing death)

   Un mortal wombat attaccava ille.

Related terms

• mortalitate
• morte

Italian

Noun

mortal m or f

1. Apocopic form of mortale

Piedmontese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mur?tal/
• Rhymes: -al

Adjective

mortal

1. mortal
2. deadly, lethal

Portuguese

Etymology

From Old Portuguese mortal, and their source Latin mort?lis, from mors (“death”).

Pronunciation

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /mu??ta?/
• Hyphenation: mor?tal

Adjective

mortal m or f (plural mortais, sometimes comparable)

1. (not comparable) Susceptible to death; mortal.

   Antonym: imortal

2. (comparable) Prone to cause death; deadly; lethal; fatal.

Inflection

Derived terms

• mortalmente

Related terms

• mortalidade

Noun

mortal m, f (plural mortais)

1. A mortal person.

   Antonym: imortal

2. (gymnastics) A backflip.

Further reading

• “mortal” in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa.

Spanish

Etymology

From Latin mort?lis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mo??tal/, [mo??t?al]
• Hyphenation: mor?tal

Adjective

mortal (plural mortales)

1. deadly
2. mortal

   Antonym: inmortal

Derived terms

Related terms

• morir
• mortalidad
• muerte

Further reading

• “mortal” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.

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.