Meaning of DIRE
| Pronunciation: | | dIr
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 WordNet Dictionary |
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- [adj] causing fear or dread or terror; "the awful war"; "an awful risk"; "dire news"; "a career or vengeance so direful that London was shocked"; "the dread presence of the headmaster"; "polio is no longer the dreaded disease it once was"; "a dreadful storm"; "a fearful howling"; "horrendous explosions shook the city"; "a terrible curse"
- [adj] fraught with extreme danger; nearly hopeless; "a desperate illness"; "on all fronts the Allies were in a desperate situation due to lack of materiel"- G.C.Marshall; "a dire emergency"
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| | Synonyms: | | alarming, awful, critical, desperate, direful, dread(a), dreaded, dreadful, fearful, fearsome, frightening, horrendous, horrific, terrible |
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| Webster's 1913 Dictionary |
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| | Definition: | | \Dire\, a. [Compar. {Direr}; superl. {Direst}.] [L. dirus;
of uncertain origin.]
1. Ill-boding; portentous; as, dire omens.
2. Evil in great degree; dreadful; dismal; horrible;
terrible; lamentable.
Dire was the tossing, deep the groans. --Milton.
Gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire. --Milton.
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| Thesaurus Terms |
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| | Related Terms: | | abominable, apocalyptic, appalling, arrant, astounding, atrocious, awe-inspiring, awesome, awful, bad, badly off, baleful, baneful, base, beastly, beneath contempt, black, blameworthy, bodeful, boding, brutal, burning, calamitous, cataclysmal, cataclysmic, catastrophic, clamant, clamorous, climacteric, contemptible, critical, crucial, crying, dark, deplorable, depressed, depressing, desperate, despicable, destructive, detestable, direful, disastrous, disgusting, distressing, donsie, doomful, dread, dreaded, dreadful, dreary, egregious, enormous, evil, evil-starred, exigent, fatal, fateful, fell, fetid, filthy, flagrant, foreboding, formidable, fortuneless, foul, frightful, fulsome, funest, ghastly, ghoulish, gloomy, grievous, grim, grisly, gross, gruesome, hapless, hateful, heartbreaking, heinous, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrid, horrific, horrifying, ill, ill off, ill-boding, ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred, imperative, importunate, in adverse circumstances, inauspicious, infamous, instant, lamentable, loathsome, lousy, lowering, luckless, macabre, menacing, monstrous, morbid, nasty, nefarious, noisome, notorious, obnoxious, odious, of evil portent, offensive, ominous, out of luck, outrageous, pitiable, pitiful, planet-struck, portending, portentous, rank, redoubtable, regrettable, reprehensible, repulsive, rotten, ruinous, sad, scandalous, schlock, schrecklich, scurvy, shabby, shameful, shocking, shoddy, short of luck, sinister, somber, sordid, squalid, star-crossed, terrible, terrific, threatening, too bad, tragic, tremendous, unblessed, unclean, underprivileged, unfavorable, unfortunate, unhappy, unlucky, unpromising, unpropitious, unprosperous, unprovidential, unspeakable, untoward, urgent, vile, villainous, woeful, worst, worthless, wreckful, wretched |
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