Atrocious vs Dire - What's the difference?
atrocious | dire |
Frightful, evil, cruel or monstrous.
Offensive or heinous. (rfex)
Very bad; abominable or disgusting.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4
, passage=The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on an afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.}}
Warning of bad consequences: ill-boding; portentous.
Requiring action to prevent bad consequences: urgent, pressing.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-14, volume=411, issue=8891, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Expressing bad consequences: dreadful; dismal; horrible; terrible; lamentable.
(label) Bad in quality, awful, terrible.
* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=December 10, author=Arindam Rej, work=BBC Sport
, title=
As adjectives the difference between atrocious and dire
is that atrocious is frightful, evil, cruel or monstrous while dire is warning of bad consequences: ill-boding; portentous.atrocious
English
Adjective
(en adjective)Usage notes
* Nouns to which "atrocious" is often applied: crime, act, murder, condition, spelling, grammar.dire
English
Adjective
(en-adj)It's a gas, passage=One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains.
Norwich 4-2 Newcastle, passage=A second Norwich goal in four minutes arrived after some dire Newcastle defending. Gosling gave the ball away with a sloppy back-pass, allowing Crofts to curl in a cross that the unmarked Morison powered in with a firm, 12-yard header.}}