causing or involving great fear or suffering; dreadful; terrible:
a dire calamity.
2.
indicating trouble, disaster, misfortune, or the like:
dire predictions about the stock market.
3.
urgent; desperate:
in dire need of food.
Origin
1560-70; < Latindīrus fearful, unlucky
Related forms
direly, adverb
direness, noun
Examples from the web for dire
But he would be greatly weakened, with dire consequences for his ability to meet many other urgent challenges.
There were some dire moments.
The result is a lively, opinionated, and timely study of irresponsible politics grappling with a dire economy.
There is a growing consensus that the situation is dire—and looking bleaker every day.
What followed was worse than even the most dire pessimist could have envisioned.
One kind that falls into the dire emergency category is anaphylactic shock.
It's hard to make an argument these days, with all the research and data to support this, that things are not that dire.
It's important to remember that dire poverty is not only in third world countries.
But dire pronouncements about new forms of entertainment are old hat.
No one really knows, yet dire predictions are made as if they are inevitable.
British Dictionary definitions for dire
dire
/daɪə/
adjective (usually prenominal)
1.
Also direful. disastrous; fearful
2.
desperate; urgent: a dire need
3.
foreboding disaster; ominous: a dire warning
Derived Forms
direly, adverb direness, noun
Word Origin
C16: from Latin dīrus ominous, fearful; related to Greek deos fear
Word Origin and History for dire
adj.
1560s, from Latin dirus "fearful, awful, boding ill," of unknown origin; perhaps from Oscan and Umbrian and perhaps cognate with Greek deinos, from PIE root *dwei-.