dire·ful

[dahyuhr-fuhl]
adjective
1.
dreadful; awful; terrible.
2.
indicating trouble: direful forecasts.

Origin:
1575–85; dire + -ful

dire·ful·ly, adverb
dire·ful·ness, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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WordNet
direful

adjective
causing fear or dread or terror; "the awful war"; "an awful risk"; "dire news"; "a career or vengeance so direful that London was shocked"; "the dread presence of the headmaster"; "polio is no longer the dreaded disease it once was"; "a dreadful storm"; "a fearful howling"; "horrendous explosions shook the city"; "a terrible curse" 
WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.
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00:10
Direful is always a great word to know.
So is quincunx. Does it mean:
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.
Example sentences
Since then it has gradually failed under the direful work of sin.
There is no mystery about the origin of this direful disease.
The newspapers of the day were filled with accounts of this direful disaster, but there were few survivors to tell the tale.
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