Definition of "blight"

A blight in 1855–56 set back the industry, many plantations being ruined and then given over to sugar cane. After the blight had disappeared, the plantations were re-established, and prosperity continued for years.

1922, William H. Ukers, All About Coffee‎

He saw her image in the blight and blackness all around him, not irradiating but deepening the gloom.

1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848

She moved about the country like a ghost, gathering herbs in dark loanings, lingering in kirkyairds, and casting a blight on innocent bairns.

1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

[This vapour] blasts vegetables, blights corn and fruit, and is sometimes injurious even to Men.

1695, John Woodward, “(please specify the page)”, in An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth: And Terrestrial Bodies, Especially Minerals: […], London: […] Ric[hard] Wilkin […]

Even he, cold and indifferent as he is, shall repent! I shall blight his hopes, as he has blighted mine.

1841, Catherine Sinclair, Modern Flirtations‎

I need hardly explain to you that if you persist in this refusal you and I cannot continue to live together as man and wife. All my hopes and prospects in life will be blighted by such a separation.

1869 May, Anthony Trollope, “Lady Milborough as Ambassador”, in He Knew He Was Right, volume I, London: Strahan and Company, […], page 81

[…] would she drop one little tear upon his poor, lifeless form, would she heave one little sigh to see a bright young life so rudely blighted, so untimely cut down?

1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter III, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, page 40

Before the Internet it was television. And, if not that, it was radio, films, or games. All have taken their turn as the popular bogeyman, blighting the minds of the young.

2013, Frances Booth, The Distraction Trap