DIREFUL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does direful mean? 

• DIREFUL (adjective)
  The adjective DIREFUL has 1 sense:

1. causing fear or dread or terror

  Familiarity information: DIREFUL used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DIREFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Causing fear or dread or terror

Synonyms:

awful; dire; direful; dread; dreaded; dreadful; fearful; fearsome; frightening; horrendous; horrific; terrible

Context example:

a terrible curse

Similar:

alarming (frightening because of an awareness of danger)

 Context examples 

Miserable I am, and must be for a time; for the catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a paradise was of a strange and direful nature.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Here had been grievous mismanagement; but, bad as it was, he gradually grew to feel that it had not been the most direful mistake in his plan of education.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

This he took in good part, and was really pleased, nodding his head with direful foreknowledge and mystery, until George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy, ventured some rough pleasantry on the subject.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I always say there is something direful in the sound: but nothing more is positively known of the Tupmans, though a good many things I assure you are suspected; and yet by their manners they evidently think themselves equal even to my brother, Mr. Suckling, who happens to be one of their nearest neighbours.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)