DIRE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Dire

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/daɪr/ /dˈaɪər/ Listen

adjective

Dire adj. (compar. direr; superl. direst)

Ill-boding; portentous; as, dire omens.

Evil in great degree; dreadful; dismal; horrible; terrible; lamentable. "Dire was the tossing, deep the groans." "Gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire."

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Etymology of 'Dire'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Dire" Quotes from Famous Books

... altogether novel to me. I had left home rather more than a twelvemonth before, the third officer of the Crisis. From this station, I had risen regularly to be her first officer; and now, by a dire catastrophe, I found myself in the Pacific, solely charged with the fortunes of my owners, and those of some forty human beings. And this, too, before I ...

— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... an over-ripe mango from his skirt, and bit into it, with dire results to his whiskers and coat,—it should be eaten only in a ...

— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... him in such wise that he cannot move. No need is there to tell more of the others, for easily were they vanquished when they saw their lord taken. They capture them all with the count and lead them away in dire shame even as they had deserved. Of all this, King Arthur's host who were without, knew not a word; but in the morning when the battle was ended they had found their shields among the bodies; and the Greeks were raising a ...

— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... only knew how manly and gentle and humble he was," she cried quickly, as if something dire might happen if Tommy were not assured of this ...

— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... How much longer would this scene of terror last? Oh, the thought of that awful leap into space! The maniac might any moment end the scene—each time as he approached in that wild rush backward and forward might be the last. The slightest move, the slightest sound, might precipitate the dire calamity—and Lilama as well as Pym and Peters seemed to feel this truth. The madman, like the wild beast, appears to need an extraneous stimulus, be it ever so slight, to suggest an initiative: the crooking of a finger, the whispering of a word, may be sufficient, but it must ...

— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

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