Dire vs Dread - What's the difference?
dire | dread |
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= To fear greatly.
To anticipate with fear.
* 1877 , (Anna Sewell), (Black Beauty) Chapter 22[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Black_Beauty/22]
To be in dread, or great fear.
* Bible, Deuteronomy i. 29
Great fear in view of impending evil; fearful apprehension of danger; anticipatory terror.
* Tillotson
* Shakespeare
* '>citation
Reverential or respectful fear; awe.
* Bible, Genesis ix 2.
* Shakespeare
Somebody or something dreaded.
(obsolete) A person highly revered.
* Spenser
(obsolete) Fury; dreadfulness.
A Rastafarian.
(chiefly, in the plural) dreadlock
Terrible; greatly feared.
(archaic) Awe-inspiring; held in fearful awe.
*
As adjectives the difference between dire and dread
is that dire is warning of bad consequences: ill-boding; portentous while dread is terrible; greatly feared.As a verb dread is
to fear greatly.As a noun dread is
great fear in view of impending evil; fearful apprehension of danger; anticipatory terror.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.}}
Quotations
* (English Citations of "dire")Derived terms
* direful * direly * direness * dire sisters * dire straits * dire wolfSee also
* voir direAnagrams
* * * ----dread
English
Verb
(en verb)- I'm dreading getting the results of the test, as it could decide my whole life.
- Day by day, hole by hole our bearing reins were shortened, and instead of looking forward with pleasure to having my harness put on as I used to do, I began to dread it.
- Dread not, neither be afraid of them.
Derived terms
* dreadable * dreadworthyNoun
(en noun)- the secret dread of divine displeasure
- the dread of something after death
- The fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth.
- His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, / The attribute to awe and majesty, / Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
- Una, his dear dread
- (Spenser)