(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.
Portentous
Definition:
(a.) Of the nature of a portent; containing portents; foreshadowing, esp. foreshadowing ill; ominous.
(a.) Hence: Monstrous; prodigious; wonderful; dreadful; as, a beast of portentous size.
Example Sentences:
(1) David Moyes' first season in charge of United has been conspicuously torrid one, but a win here tonight would earn him no shortage of goodwill from supporters anxious for portents of better things to come next season.
(2) Theranos is a perfect tech company name – it sounds mysterious, Greek and portentous.
(3) In the letter written to the papers by 60 leading medical professionals on the first day of the House of Lords debate two weeks ago, they said portentously "the British people do not support the privatisation of the NHS".
(4) Even before final results were announced a statement from Romney, who was campaigning in Texas, sought to capitalise on the victory by acclaiming it a portent of what was to come.
(5) But the commander made it clear he considered full withdrawal to be a portent of disaster.
(6) The portents do not look good for Malaysia's opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim , whose trial on highly dubious sodomy charges draws to a close this week.
(7) The advocacy of computer operators' needs by user-welfare groups, universities, labor unions, and government agencies are portents for achieving genuine improvements.
(8) Russell Crowe looks on stentorian form as the pre-flood patriarch, reeling from portents of the apocalypse and determined to protect his wife (Jennifer Connelly), his adopted daughter (Emma Watson) and the animals of the world.
(9) In previous tournaments that might have been seen as typical of the Murphy’s law that seems to apply to England at international competitions or at least as an ominous portent of things to come.
(10) Certain fishes have occasional circulating erythroplastids, conceptually a portent of phylogenetic changes in higher vertebrates.
(11) "My older brother Matt did it," he said, portentously, "I have to beat him."
(12) 42.5% - show that head injuries are most frequent; however, lesions of shoulders and upper and lower extremities are far more portentous ++ to the affected players in many respects.
(13) It is up to Wenger now to prove it was a blip rather than a portent of things to come.
(14) The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe is a portent, the last thing China wants to face in its own back yard.
(15) Today those theories are Film School 101, and Battleship Potemkin's technique is talked about more than its political portent.
(16) He described the Community Shield as being somewhere between a pre-season friendly and a Premier League fixture and he cautioned against it being treated as a portent for the season.
(17) These two cases serve to alert the physician that severe hypocholesterolemia is a portentous finding that may be associated both with a wide variety of diseases and with a high mortality rate.
(18) Add it all together and the portents are highly encouraging.
(19) After a party conference season in which health funding pledges were prominent, and with the NHS set to feature heavily in the runup to the 2015 general election, the byelection is a portent of political battles to come.
(20) The portent of these different haemostatic mechanisms upon repair of the endothelial cell wall and neovascularization have yet to be determined.