Cause of distress

The answer

BANE

4 letters. See every clue for this answer on the BANE answer page.

Used 16 times across 11 distinct years; most recently in 2023; first recorded in 1984. It appears in 4 publications in the xd corpus. Frequency and last-seen figures come from the xd crossword corpus only.

Other answers for this clue

The same clue has also been answered these ways in the xd corpus. Answers inside this collection link to their own answer page.

• INCUBUS (1 uses in xd)

Other clues for BANE

Every other clue in this collection answered by BANE, most used first.

• Curse - used 57 times, most recently in 2026
• Scourge - used 55 times, most recently in 2025
• Ruination - used 48 times, most recently in 2025
• Cause of ruin - used 43 times, most recently in 2026
• Poison - used 31 times, most recently in 2014
• Nemesis - used 28 times, most recently in 2025
• Thorn in one's side - used 27 times, most recently in 2025
• Source of misery - used 24 times, most recently in 2023
• Source of ruin - used 22 times, most recently in 2026
• Spoiler - used 20 times, most recently in 2023
• Downfall - used 18 times, most recently in 2025
• Ruin - used 18 times, most recently in 2010
• Deadly poison - used 15 times, most recently in 2013
• ___ of one's existence - used 15 times, most recently in 2025
• "The Dark Knight Rises" villain - used 15 times, most recently in 2025
• Cause of harm - used 14 times, most recently in 2020
• Cause of misery - used 14 times, most recently in 2022
• The ___ of my existence - used 10 times, most recently in 2026
• Undoing - used 10 times, most recently in 2020
• Bugaboo - used 9 times, most recently in 2026
• Source of harm - used 9 times, most recently in 2024
• The ___ of one's existence - used 9 times, most recently in 2026
• Bete noire - used 7 times, most recently in 2021
• Harmful thing - used 7 times, most recently in 1980
• Ruinous agent - used 7 times, most recently in 2013
• Cause of one's undoing - used 6 times, most recently in 2013
• "It's the ___ of my existence" - used 6 times, most recently in 2026

Related clues

Clues in this collection of the same answer length that share a word with this clue, or match its answer pattern when no word is shared. Most used first.

• Underlying cause - ROOT, used 33 times
• Distress. - PAIN, used 22 times
• Cause for a lawsuit - TORT, used 21 times
• Cry of distress - YOWL, used 21 times
• Sound of distress - MOAN, used 18 times
• Cause of a bad air day - SMOG, used 17 times

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