bane

The arrangement was aimed at minimizing the number and cost of change orders, which are the bane of construction projects.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026

She was a stickler for analysis, whose intensive assignments were the bane of many classmates.

From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026

Now he could well become L.A.’s first homeless mayor—fittingly, in a city where homelessness is the greatest civic obsession as well as the greatest civic bane.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026

I make a lot of phone calls for stories, and meticulously transcribing those interviews has been the bane of my existence since I was in high school.

From Slate ● May 24, 2026

“They’re the bane of my existence,” I say, referring to the freckles.

From "Everything, Everything" by Nicola Yoon

Summertime in Washington means not only heat and humidity, but includes the seemingly ever present possibility that those two seasonal banes can combine in creating thunder, lightning and a rapid rise in creeks.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 8, 2022

Though she clearly champions her subjects, Brewer doesn’t pull any punches about why the festival fell apart after seven years, thanks to those classic banes of arts nonprofits, volunteer burnout and the failure to professionalize.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 1, 2020

But we know that paperwork was one of the banes of the housing crisis.

From Slate ● Nov. 10, 2016

One of the banes of commercial existence has been that Internet domain names can be registered by anyone, in a flash.

From Forbes ● Jan. 23, 2015

Whether by the banes of the sea, banes of the farm, or banes of the woods.

From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer