(a.) Dire; dreadful; terrible; calamitous; woeful; as, a direful fiend; a direful day.
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.
Ominous
Definition:
(a.) Of or pertaining to an omen or to omens; being or exhibiting an omen; significant; portentous; -- formerly used both in a favorable and unfavorable sense; now chiefly in the latter; foreboding or foreshowing evil; inauspicious; as, an ominous dread.
Example Sentences:
(1) Indeed, his reaction to the nationwide citizens' revolt reveals ominous parallels with another autocratic leader who has recently found himself in a tight spot: Vladimir Putin.
(2) As with other malignant salivary gland tumors, advanced stage and pain as a presenting symptom were ominous findings.
(3) We reached the following conclusions: The incidence of operative phrenic nerve injury in infants undergoing lateral thoracotomy, particularly for Blalock-Taussig shunt, is higher than generally appreciated; plication is a safe procedure as performed by either an abdominal or thoracic approach; failure to achieve extubation within a week of plication is an ominous prognostic sign; mortality in patients with eventration in the presence of major associated conditions may be high despite plication.
(4) A decrease of the activities of all dehydrogenases examined appeared to be prognostically ominous, correlating with a score of 7 or higher.
(5) In our report we document that myelofibrosis associated with breast cancer is not an ominous sign.
(6) In a comment likely to be seen as ominous at the White House, Comey said the inquiry was “very complex and there is no way for me to give you a timetable as to when it will be done”.
(7) Ominous fetal heart rate patterns were less common in hypertensive women without these risk factors; still the significant differences in comparison with normotensive women remained.
(8) The presence of liquid neutral fat without an intra-articular fracture is an ominous sign of a significant soft tissue injury.
(9) The tracings were scored blindly according to severity of abnormal patterns, and the infants were grouped into ominous, intermediate, and normal scores.
(10) The point made here is that loss of biodiversity should be as ominous for microbiologists and biotechnologists as it is to conservationists.
(11) In 1997, the Miami Fusion entered the league and ominously played in the old home of the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers (a converted high school stadium).
(12) Starting small, with oddly tweaked vocal samples and ominous-sounding piano, the first half is brilliantly brooding, to the point where the first chorus of “I love these streets but they weren’t meant for me to walk” arrives at the 45-second mark just as all the music drops away completely.
(13) It’s a seismic moment for the industry and particularly the big European manufacturers who have done a lot of work on diesel: technologically, they have they made the wrong bet.” Some analysts believe fears of brand damage in Europe are overstated but Bailey says: “In the US it’s very different: VW have killed their diesel market and it has left them in a very difficult position.” For British manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover, the timing of VW’s woes was ominous, as it unveiled two new diesels in America.
(14) The finding of involvement of para-aortic lymph nodes in patients with adenocarcinoma of the prostate has been considered so ominous that further therapy has often only been palliative.
(15) It is ominous because it suggests that the monitors will not be given free access as was hoped.
(16) Both clear-cut benign and transitional sebaceous neoplasms should also be recognized as having the potential to undergo an ominous clinical regrowth upon subtotal excision and a complete squamous transformation.
(17) She writes: It used to be that evil finance plots at least had the dignity to be conducted in back rooms, with much mustache-twirling and fondling of watch fobs as well as hearty, if ominous laughs.
(18) Even more ominous is the fragmentation of the global news agenda, and with it public opinion, into clear propaganda blocs.
(19) Having done battle with the Walkie-Scorchie "fryscraper" by Rafael Viñoly – who, somewhat ominously, is also responsible for the Battersea power station masterplan – at least London should be ready for whatever Gehry decides to throw at it.
(20) But I think the signs from here on are more ominous for Cameron.