What's the difference between awful and dire?

Awful


Definition:

  • (a.) Oppressing with fear or horror; appalling; terrible; as, an awful scene.
  • (a.) Inspiring awe; filling with profound reverence, or with fear and admiration; fitted to inspire reverential fear; profoundly impressive.
  • (a.) Struck or filled with awe; terror-stricken.
  • (a.) Worshipful; reverential; law-abiding.
  • (a.) Frightful; exceedingly bad; great; -- applied intensively; as, an awful bonnet; an awful boaster.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But at the same time I didn't feel like, 'Aw, I'm home!'
  • (2) It seems like an awfully long way from the ground.” He added: “When I was younger, I dreamed of being an astronaut, but I also wanted to be a policeman or a firebreather.
  • (3) EEG waves were similar during Aw and Qw but they diminished in amplitude and frequency when passing from these states to Qs, and both parameters increased during As.
  • (4) In vitro blastogenic responses of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMN) to heterogeneous schistosome-derived antigens (eggs, SEA; adult worms, AW; and cercariae, CERC) were evaluated.
  • (5) Asked whether the loss of control of the streets was embarrassing, Sir Paul replied: "Well the one thing I would say is that it must have been an awful time for the people trying to go about their daily business in those buildings.
  • (6) By contrast, storage fungi, especially Aspergillus spp., are able to grow at low water activities (aw, 0.70-0.75) enabling them to initiate grain spoilage.
  • (7) It was a bit of a nightmare … there wasn't an awful lot I could do."
  • (8) It’s very, very difficult to feel any optimism about this summit or what it will do for people looking for a safe place for them and their families right at this moment, nor tackle the awful actions of countries who are now thinking, ‘If other countries won’t help take responsibility, then why should we?’ and are now driving back desperate people.
  • (9) It has been awfully hard-won, carved slowly out of a big block of human agony.
  • (10) AW: Well, I think a rather terrific movie, actually.
  • (11) For the AW group the occurrence rate becomes 0.00043 per chromosome per generation for all aberrations and 0.00041 for inversions.
  • (12) Third, we must do more to strengthen the old principle of contribution: there are lots of people right now who feel they pay an awful lot more in than they ever get back.
  • (13) "We welcome a consultation, but default filters are awful," said ORG executive director Jim Killock.
  • (14) All samples are well detected by anti-B from AW, Aend, Ax, Am but none is detected by anti-B from ABx, Cis AB, or by an auto-anti-B.
  • (15) I even suspect that if Charlotte had truly known what marriage to a man so teeth-gnashingly awful really meant – in a way that no woman without the experience of going out with, let alone sleeping with, someone inappropriate can – she would have made a different choice.
  • (16) To determine whether the presence of small-intestinal malabsorption is associated with the development of AWS in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients with chronic diarrhea, we retrospectively reviewed the results of D-xylose testing performed in the clinical evaluation of 21 consecutive HIV-infected patients with chronic diarrhea.
  • (17) The atmospherics between the Athens government and its antagonists, which is now just about every player of importance in the rest of Europe, have been awful for weeks and have got more poisonous as they have neared the crunch.
  • (18) Cell lines AW 13516 and AW 8507 were derived from poorly differentiated SCC and epidermoid carcinoma of the tongue respectively.
  • (19) We worked awfully hard for this Premier League status and we don’t want to give it up.” Gylfi Sigurdsson’s 61st-minute strike – his sixth goal in 10 games – settled a scrappy Liberty Stadium contest that failed to spark into life until the Iceland international finished from substitute Leroy Fer’s pass.
  • (20) 9.27pm BST 67 min: The Argentinian fans are making an awful lot of noise here.

Dire


Definition:

  • (superl.) Ill-boding; portentous; as, dire omens.
  • (superl.) Evil in great degree; dreadful; dismal; horrible; terrible; lamentable.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Why is it so surprising to people that a boy like Chol, just out of conflict, has thought through the needs of his country in such a detailed way?” While Beah’s zeal is laudable, the situation in South Sudan is dire .
  • (2) It is that beautiful moment when the original Metamorphosis is destroyed so that it can be refashioned for a global community of readers in dire need of new forms of storytelling.
  • (3) In this investigation, reanalysis of responses to case vignettes obtained from 436 psychologists, psychiatrists, and internists revealed that on the issue of confidentiality management, these health care providers discriminate among cases involving: Premeditated harm to others, socially irresponsible acts with possible dire consequences to self or others, and minor theft.
  • (4) The report’s concluding chapters raised dire warning that the operations of contemporary child protection agencies were replicating many of the destructive dynamics of the Stolen Generations era.
  • (5) Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, warned Barack Obama in public remarks this month that history had shown “sacrificing our right to privacy can have dire consequences”.
  • (6) Algeria had not scored a World Cup goal since they drew 1-1 with Northern Ireland at Mexico 1986, a run that took in five matches, including that dire 0-0 draw with England in Cape Town four years ago.
  • (7) Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire.
  • (8) High among the range of issues was the media dominance of the Globo group (whose journalists were chased away from demonstrations by an irate mob), inefficient use of public funds, forced relocations linked to Olympic real estate developments, the treatment of indigenous groups, dire inequality and excessive use of force by police in favela communities.
  • (9) Burrows had resigned as governor of Bank of Ireland, leaving the lender in dire straits, with big losses and mounting debt threatening its very survival.
  • (10) Yet the inability to get on in life is a now a major and growing problem for middle-class children and this group is in dire need of attention, it is expected to report.
  • (11) Vince Cable, their shadow chancellor, said: "The Liberal Democrats welcome the government's recognition that radical action is now needed, reflecting the dire and deteriorating position of the UK economy.
  • (12) Its willingness to ignore diplomatic convention and use its Kuala Lumpur embassy to conduct an extraterritorial assassination will be seen as setting a dire precedent that cannot be allowed to stand.
  • (13) What is clear, however, is that the reported escalation in fighting exacerbates the already dire humanitarian and human rights situation and the suffering of the Yemeni people,” said Ban’s spokesman, Farhan Haq.
  • (14) In a scene of young soldiers at rest for a few minutes at the front, he takes us into their heads: one full of dire forebodings, another singing, one trying to identify a bird on a tree – soldiers dreaming of girls’ breasts, dogs, sausages and poetry.
  • (15) Despite its own dire predictions on the potential impact of climate change , the government's impact assessment for Flood Re does not take account of " changing flood risk due to deterioration of existing flood defences [or] climate change".
  • (16) The situation is so dire the National Audit Office has warned that by 2020 schools will be worse funded than at any time since the mid-90s.
  • (17) John Macgregor, an aid worker who has been accompanying teams delivering food and water to Battambang, described the area as a vast inland sea where conditions are dire and malnutrition is common.
  • (18) But they are also the stuff of nightmares, because if an electricity grid is overwhelmed by demand, the consequences can be dire, as India discovered recently , when more than 700 million people were left without power.
  • (19) Thousands of jobs that would have been created will be lost and the knock-on effect will be so dire.
  • (20) While big businesses have enjoyed access to new couriers, Royal Mail itself eventually reached such a dire state that the Hooper report urged the government to rewrite the law to clarify that competition was a mixed blessing.

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