dire

The dire fatalism that dominated the discourse then is gone, replaced largely with a practiced apathy.

He was roused from a meditation on these dire imaginings, by the sudden appearance of two figures at a turn of the lane.

Then, all at once he realized that he himself was in dire peril.

Not even the watermelon revived him, and when a watermelon will not help a boy his extremity is dire.

I will not shock you by relating the extremes to which dire necessity had driven me.

The silence was unbroken except for a slight shuffling of feet, but the dire disappointment was depicted on every face.