Dire

How to spell dire

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dire

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dire mean?

1. adjectiveExtremely serious, urgent, or threatening, often warning of disaster.

Dire in a sentence

• The company faced dire financial trouble after losing its biggest client.

• Ignoring the warning could have dire consequences for the whole project.

Where does dire come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Dire comes straight from the Latin adjective dirus, which meant 'fearful', 'ominous', or 'dreadful', and was often used of evil omens and disastrous warnings sent by the gods. English borrowed it in the middle of the 1500s, keeping both the sense of something terrible and the related idea of an urgent crisis that demands action. The Roman poets used dirus for the most foreboding signs, which is why the word still carries a weight of impending catastrophe rather than ordinary unpleasantness. The spelling is short and deceptively simple: the single silent 'e' lengthens the 'i' to give the long 'eye' sound, and there is no doubled letter or hidden vowel to trip over. It is a cousin in feeling, though not in root, of other doom-laden borrowings, and its compactness is exactly why it survives in phrases about dire straits and dire consequences.

How the word is built

• dir- (from Latin dirus: fearful, dreadful)
• -e (silent stabilising vowel)

Words that sound like dire

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• dyer: A person or business whose trade is colouring cloth, yarn, or other materials with dye.