What's the difference between dire and dirt?

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.

Dirt


Definition:

  • (n.) Any foul of filthy substance, as excrement, mud, dust, etc.; whatever, adhering to anything, renders it foul or unclean; earth; as, a wagonload of dirt.
  • (n.) Meanness; sordidness.
  • (n.) In placer mining, earth, gravel, etc., before washing.
  • (v. t.) To make foul of filthy; to dirty.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But this morning's right-of-centre national papers were determined to rub his nose in the dirt.
  • (2) He got so bad that I - and this is true - turned off the television and went outside to watch my son add to his dirt collection.
  • (3) But Gates’s decision to “bump off from art” and live “in the sphere of dirt, the dirty, the stuff that we think is in the ground” was revelatory, leading to invitations to Davos and a TED Talk, where he talked about how he revived a neighborhood with imagination and hard graft .
  • (4) Earlier this year, a century-old wasteland of limestone and red dirt in south-west Nigeria was transformed into the biggest cement plant in Africa.
  • (5) Along with Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly, he brought the music of the dirt farms, the sweat shops and the lonesome highways into America's – and later the world's – living room.
  • (6) The land is held by the Navajo people, and visitors must pay an access fee to drive through the tribal park on a 17-mile dirt loop, which is suitable for all cars when dry but impassable after a storm ( usually in late summer).
  • (7) It’s a bit of a trek to get there: a few kilometres drive along a dirt road and then a short walk, with arrows painted on stones.
  • (8) Apparently, optimal disinfection of contaminated knives is extremely difficult to attain without the use of mechanical forces such as a high pressure water jet to remove the dirt.
  • (9) This state of high resistance to infection can be reduced by several factors which include circulatory embarrassment, tissue injury, dead space, and the presence of foreign bodies (dirt, sutures, drains, etc.).
  • (10) Among the prime concerns, especially for facial skin, is the type of dirt, debris, or make-up to be removed.
  • (11) We’re out there one night ’til 3am shoveling dirt on the fire.
  • (12) The land that when you shed your shoes and walk, you feel every grain of dirt and every blade of grass and for a moment, everything is right in the world and you are in your rightful place in it.
  • (13) Because the all-hallowed children must learn from their elders to exercise, every adult entering Hampstead Heath must hit the dirt for a set of 25 press-ups.
  • (14) Elevated concentrations of the soil fungi were significantly (P = 0.05) associated with the dirt floor, crawl-space type of basement.
  • (15) With its dirt pavements and crumbling wooden homes, the city of Kirov is a city stuck in time.
  • (16) Another former colleague in the psychological operations unit, Fred Allen Lucas, said that Page called him a "race traitor" for dating Latina women and took to calling other races "dirt people".
  • (17) Observations for estrus were conducted three times daily in a dirt paddock containing a testosterone-treated cow.
  • (18) On the outskirts of Juba, along a dirt road just past the UN camp, opposition forces clad in new uniforms and boots lined up for a military parade.
  • (19) Lead antiknock additives are therefore not a significant contributor to the lead content of dirt around houses where children usually play.
  • (20) As the result of smear slide evaluation, it was concluded that proper sputum specimens have been smeared but smears were generally too thin and contaminated with too many dirt .

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