How to Use dire in a Sentence

dire

adjective

• They live in dire poverty.
• The circumstances are now more dire than ever.
• Some analysts are issuing dire economic forecasts.
• All wild tigers are threatened with extinction, but Sumatran tigers are in especially dire straits because the world's zoos have only 235 of them in captive-breeding programs.
  — Audubon, November-December 1998
• Where things look more dire is in the race for the AFC’s top seed.
  — Andrew Gillis, cleveland, 24 Dec. 2022
• The effects that coups have on economies are no less dire.
  — Comfort Ero, Foreign Affairs, 12 Dec. 2023
• There’s no getting around the fact that it’s been a dire year for the planet.
  — Umair Irfan, Vox, 28 Dec. 2024
• Merchant ably demonstrates the dire stakes of the Luddites’ plight.
  — Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker, 26 Sep. 2023
• Gloria didn’t seem to buy that things would be so dire.
  — Michael Smolens, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Dec. 2023
• The press is full of dire warnings that this could mean doom for the Voting Rights Act.
  — Evan Gerstmann, Forbes, 4 Oct. 2022
• Right now, the Reds are in dire need of their starters to provide more innings.
  — Charlie Goldsmith, The Enquirer, 17 Aug. 2022
• The plight of the indie comic creator may be even more dire.
  — Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 27 July 2023
• This year’s heat wave was primed for less dire impacts.
  — Evan Bush, NBC News, 29 July 2022
• The situation for trans Russians in the wake of the new law is far more dire.
  — Fred Weir, The Christian Science Monitor, 4 Aug. 2023
• The chances of my survival in these dire conditions would be slim to none.
  — Ryan Hampton, Time, 15 Aug. 2023
• Though the conditions were sometimes dire, Loudon made the best of his time in Nome.
  — David Reamer, Anchorage Daily News, 18 Dec. 2022
• Here’s what to know about it and how to tell something more dire isn’t going on.
  — Katie Camero, SELF, 17 Oct. 2024
• Things became so dire that Mack once asked Combs for cash at an event.
  — Cheyenne Roundtree, Rolling Stone, 16 Aug. 2024
• Daniele and Yohan’s relationship may be in the most dire state, though.
  — Kelly Wynne, Peoplemag, 26 Sep. 2023
• This one is always a great option to keep in your purse or car for dire times.
  — Kaitlyn Yarborough, Southern Living, 21 Jan. 2023
• Both men seem resigned to a dire fate set forth by a country that failed them.
  — Andre Gee, Rolling Stone, 26 Oct. 2024
• Veen has seen the dire predictions about the 2025 Rockies.
  — Patrick Saunders, The Denver Post, 1 Mar. 2025
• But the region is also in dire need of more physicians.
  — Madeline Mitchell, The Enquirer, 10 May 2023
• Bored out of her mind, her life feels equally dire and absurd.
  — Ron Charles, Washington Post, 30 Aug. 2022
• The highs in Newton-John's life were more marvelous than most, but they were matched by dire lows.
  — Holly Thomas, CNN, 10 Aug. 2022
• But food banks remain on the alert, at a time when hunger across the U.S. is already at dire levels.
  — Nicholas Creel, MSNBC Newsweek, 19 Apr. 2025
• But nowhere has the phenomenon been as dire as in New York.
  — Mihir Zaveri, New York Times, 23 Jan. 2023
• To hear the economists tell it, things are pretty dire.
  — James MacKintosh, WSJ, 4 Dec. 2022
• The goal is to show the Legislature just how dire the situation is and how many Californians have been harmed by runaway production in the last decade.
  — Katie Campione, Deadline, 2 May 2025
• To be sure, many dire warning signs on the economy have been from surveys of businesses or from leading economists, while measures of the labor market remain healthier, with the jobless rate in March only ticking slightly higher to 4.2%.
  — Jason Lange, USA Today, 25 Apr. 2025