A cause of great distress, ruin, or death — from Old English bana (slayer, murderer), via Proto-Germanic *banō and PIE *gʷʰen- (to strike, kill), cognate with Greek phonos (murder) through Grimm's Law.
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Old EnglishPre-700 CE to 1100 CEwell-attested
Old English bana (also bona) meant 'slayer, murderer, killer' — an agent noun denoting the person or being that causes death. It appears extensively in Beowulf, where thedragon is called Beowulf's bana, meaning his slayer. This directly reflects the Proto-Germanic *banō, reconstructed as meaning 'death, slayer, killer', shared across the North and West Germanic branches
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Grimm's Lawpredicts that PIE *gʷʰ becomes Germanic *b — which is exactly why bane (Old English bana, slayer) is a cousin of Greek phonos (murder) and Sanskrit han- (to strike, kill). Sameroot, same ancient meaning, three different initial consonants, each the regular outcome of its own phonological history. In Beowulf, the dragon is named Beowulfe bana — Beowulf's slayer — using the word in its oldest, most concrete
descendants across multiple branches: Greek phonos (murder, killing), Sanskrit han- (to strike, to kill), and Avestan jana- (killing). The shift from PIE *gʷʰ- to Germanic *b- is a textbook demonstration of Grimm's Law: PIE voiced aspirate stops became Germanic voiced stops, with *gʷʰ yielding *b. This explains why bane and Greek phonos, though seemingly unrelated in form, share the same ancestral root. The semantic drift runs: personal agent ('slayer') → abstract cause ('that which causes death') → specific poison ('henbane', 'wolfsbane' — plants that kill). Compounds like henbane (recorded Old English) and wolfsbane preserve the poisonous-plant sense. Key roots: *gʷʰen- (Proto-Indo-European: "to strike, to kill — cognate with Greek phonos (murder), Sanskrit han- (to strike/kill)"), *banō (Proto-Germanic: "slayer, killer, death — Grimm's Law shift: PIE *gʷʰ → Germanic *b").