dire

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Related to direst: elaborated, staunchest, seemliest

dire

(dīr)

adj. dir·er, dir·est

1. Warning of or having dreadful or terrible consequences; calamitous: a dire economic forecast; dire threats.

2. Urgent; desperate: in dire need; dire poverty.

[Latin dīrus, fearsome, terrible; akin to Greek deinos.]

dire′ly adv.

dire′ness n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

dire

(daɪə)

adj (usually prenominal)

1. Also: direful disastrous; fearful

2. desperate; urgent: a dire need.

3. foreboding disaster; ominous: a dire warning.

[C16: from Latin dīrus ominous, fearful; related to Greek deos fear]

ˈdirely adv

ˈdireness n

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

dire

(daɪ^ər)

adj. dir•er, dir•est.

1. causing or involving great fear or suffering; terrible.

2. indicating trouble, disaster, or the like: dire predictions.

3. urgent; desperate: in dire need.

[1560–70; < Latin dīrus fearful, unlucky]

dire′ly, adv.

dire′ness, n.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Adj.	1.	dire - 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" desperate critical - being in or verging on a state of crisis or emergency; "a critical shortage of food"; "a critical illness"; "an illness at the critical stage"
	2.	dire - 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" direful, dread, dreaded, dreadful, fearsome, frightening, horrendous, terrible, awful, horrific, fearful alarming - frightening because of an awareness of danger

dire

adjective

1. desperate, pressing, crying, critical, terrible, crucial, alarming, extreme, awful, appalling, urgent, cruel, horrible, disastrous, grim, dreadful, gloomy, fearful, dismal, drastic, catastrophic, ominous, horrid, woeful, ruinous, calamitous, cataclysmic, portentous, godawful (slang), exigent, bodeful the dire predicament of the refugees

2. terrible, awful, appalling, dreadful, abysmal, frightful, godawful (slang) a book of verse which ranged from the barely tolerable to the utterly dire

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

dire

adjective

1. Portending future disaster:

apocalyptic, apocalyptical, baneful, direful, fateful, fire-and-brimstone, grave, hellfire, ominous, portentous, unlucky.

2. Causing or able to cause fear:

appalling, direful, dreadful, fearful, fearsome, formidable, frightful, ghastly, redoubtable, scary, terrible, tremendous.

3. Compelling immediate attention:

burning, crying, emergent, exigent, imperative, instant, pressing, urgent.

4. So serious as to be at the point of crisis or necessary to resolve a crisis:

acute, climacteric, critical, crucial, desperate.

Translations

رَهيب، مُفْزِع، مُنْذِر بِكارِثَه

hrozný

forfærdeligrisikabel

grässlich

atroz espantoso extremo funesto nefasto

hirveäkamalakauhea

extrême funeste sinistre terrible

hræîilegur, ógnòrunginn

spaventoso urgente necessit...

drausmīgsšausmīgs

gevaarlijkomineusonheilspellend sinister verschrikkelijk

horrível terrível

korkunç müthiş

可怕的

dire

[daɪəʳ] ADJ (direr (superl))

1. (= terrible) [event, consequences, results] → nefasto, funesto; [situation] → desesperado; [warning, prediction] → alarmante; [poverty] → extremo
to be in dire need of sth → necesitar algo desesperadamente
to be in dire straits → estar en un serio aprieto or apuro

2. (= awful) [film, book] → pésimo, malísimo

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

dire

[ˈdaɪə^r] adj

(= disastrous) [consequences] → terrible, désastreux/euse

(= extreme) [poverty] → extrême
to be in dire need of sth → avoir un besoin urgent de qch
to be in dire straits (financially) → être dans une situation désespérée

(pejorative) (= awful) → affreux/euse

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

dire

adj

(= serious) consequences → verheerend; warning, prediction, threat → unheilvoll; effects → katastrophal; situation → miserabel; (= desperate) → verzweifelt; the dire state of the property market → die miserable Lage auf dem Immobilienmarkt; in dire poverty → in äußerster Armut; to do something out of dire necessity → etw aus dringender Notwendigkeit tun; to be in dire need of something → etw dringend brauchen; to be in dire straits → in einer ernsten Notlage sein; the economy is in dire straits → die Wirtschaftslage ist katastrophal

(inf: = awful) → mies (inf); the standard is pretty dire → das Niveau ist unter aller Kritik (inf)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

dire

[ˈdaɪəʳ] adj (warning) → minaccioso/a; (consequences) → disastroso/a; (event) → terribile; (poverty) → nero/a
dire necessity → dura necessità
in dire straits → nei guai

dire

(ˈdaiə) adjective

dreadful; perilous.

Mentioned in ?

References in classic literature ?

I have been to pay the parents a visit of condolence, and found them living in the direst poverty and disorder.

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But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through.

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Look now at Stubb; a man who from his humorous, deliberate coolness and equanimity in the direst emergencies, was specially qualified to excel in pitchpoling.

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It is laudable, what they think hard; what is indispensable and hard they call good; and what relieveth in the direst distress, the unique and hardest of all,--they extol as holy.

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Was this lost child destined to be the innocent means of leading me back to the woman I loved, in her direst need of sympathy and help?

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But it was the constant shadow of my presence, the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged, and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge!

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Ye who have wondered to hear, in the same evangel, that God is love, and that God is a consuming fire, see ye not how, to the soul resolved in evil, perfect love is the most fearful torture, the seal and sentence of the direst despair?

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Finding her own sensations exactly like those described in the book as symptoms of the direst diseases, she put it by in alarm, and took up a novel, which was free from the fault she had found in the lectures, inasmuch as none of the emotions it described in the least resembled any she had ever experienced.

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Back and forth swayed the fighters, their cudgels pounding this way and that, knocking off splinters and bark, and threatening direst damage to bone and muscle and skin.

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In vain did the Sphere, in his voice of thunder, reiterate his command of silence, and threaten me with the direst penalties if I persisted.

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"Put it back, put it back!" He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced.

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As for King William Island, the Makambo, on the former run of the Cockspur, stopped there every ten weeks; but the direst threat Daughtry ever held over him was the putting ashore of him at the place where the two active young men still mourned their pig.